Consequences
by steamfan
Summary: "These men are chosen at birth – rejects, orphans - all of them unwanted and disposable."  Or are they?  The consequences of the Belicoff hit reach far further than anyone had ever anticipated.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Hitman, either the film or the games.

"These men are chosen at birth – rejects, orphans - all of them unwanted and disposable." Or are they?

"I once hunted a man for three years. He was a damned ghost, a professional hit man," Interpol Inspector Mike Whittaker said. He and his partner were sitting in a bar full of cops, and like most such gatherings the night was ending with stories, both those true to life and those that were exaggerated. Tonight's stories were on the subject of the worst or deadliest criminals they had encountered. "I went home one night, about three months after a very deadly chase through most of Russia." He sighed, remembering that rainy night and running his hand through his now greying hair.

He looked sharply over at the two youngest agents. "Pay attention kiddies. This was the deadliest man alive ten years ago. He'd completed over one hundred hits that I know of and over forty men died in that one chase alone. His own organization set him up to take a fall on the hit he'd just completed. They called in his location to us without his knowledge.

"I saw him that night. He was only halfway dressed and barefoot. He was as unprepared as the man got, and sixteen Russian SWAT officers still died going in silent to arrest him. No one has ever beaten his record as far as I'm aware either. Jenks and I both barely escaped with our lives when we cornered him in the Saint Petersburg train station hours afterwards. If it wasn't for a young woman that he had with him that begged for both of our lives, I have no doubt that neither of us would have lived to see the next morning. His trademarks were; no motive, no evidence and no witnesses, ever.

"When I walked into my study that night, that particular ghost was sitting behind my desk. He was holding a picture of my family while he trained a gun at my head. He said that I had a nice family and they were alive, safe and asleep, and that they would remain so only as long as I didn't push him. If I forced him to kill me, then they would be killed as well. We talked for perhaps fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before he got up to leave.

"With the threat to my family I was hyperaware that this man could come back at any time and no one would be able to stop him. There was a split second opening and I took it because it was the only way to stop that threat. It was because of sheer luck and desperation that I came out on top that night. Never dismiss lady luck boys and girls, because she can bring down even the most capable of men and never back a desperate man into a corner. It's asking to be killed."

"Was he the one who gave you the information on the Organization?" Jenkins asked, finally putting the pieces together.

"Those bastards are the ones who raised him," Mike revealed.

"Well now that makes sense," Jenkins muttered. They'd had more than a few run-ins with assassins from the Organization as they strove to shut it down. The group was totally neutral and dedicated to the creation of professional killers. While none of the men were of the same caliber of their ghost, they all were more than simply competent. It didn't help that the intelligence agencies around the world were more interested in using their services than they were in putting a stop to the men who stole baby boys and turned them into programed killers. Of course the only reason that the Organization left them alone was that no one had put a hit out on them. As much as it stuck in Jenks' craw, the assassins considered them to be nuisances.

"He was the best they ever created, and then they shot themselves in the ass by pissing him off," Mike laughed. "I know that they lost at least five other agents going after him. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they lost a hell of a lot more than that."

"Ah, our bodies at the train station and that so called monk at the funeral," Jenkins remembered. "Poor bastards really need a better retirement plan."

"Is that why the two of you chase the Organization so hard?" the youngest agent asked. "You feel sorry for them?"

"No," Mike said firmly. "I chase them because they kidnap baby boys and abuse them and then set them loose upon the world to survive for a few short years as assassins before killing them off themselves. They destroy families. They harm children. They force the survivors to commit murder for money. They're no better than a back alley pimp pushing young girls into prostitution."


	2. Chapter 2

Napa Valley, California

Mike Whittaker hadn't actually killed his ghost. The man had arranged to fake his own death with Mike's cooperation. Mike's payment had been his and his family's lives. He hoped that his ghost had taken the chance to escape his criminal past, but worried about it. Men who know only one life find it almost impossible to change. He hadn't found any crimes that fit his ghost's profile in the last ten years though and that gave him enough to soothe his guilt. He was serious when he compared the hitmen of the Organization to prostitutes and he had no problem helping a prostitute to get out of that life either.

Mike would have been very surprised to find out to find out what sort of life his ghost was living these days. Jack Cooper, as his ghost now called himself was retired from high profile contracts. He still committed hits on a regular basis though. These were the sort that Mike not only would not be brought in on as they were assumed to be local crimes, if they were classified as crimes at all as 47 liked to be subtle whenever possible, but they were also the type that 47's wife would prefer to hear that he had taken on.

Drug dealers, child sex dealers – both in pornography and in real live children, family abusers, and other such scum were the ones he delivered to death now. Although it made no difference to him what his target had done, seeing his wife's eyes light up when he told her that he had killed someone that she deemed deserved death made the extra effort worth it. He liked it when he was able to please her.

There hadn't been many people in his life that he had ever pleased before, more like none in fact. Even his trainers had been simply less brutish when he had completed a task adequately. There was also the extra challenge in giving these people the deaths that they had earned, usually at the client's request, while still providing his usual perfect service. There was more than enough work to keep him occupied, and there was the additional perk in that it got him out of the house frequently when they were expecting another child.

The man once known as Agent 47 didn't bother to hide a flinch when his wife Nika showed him the positive home pregnancy test in their shared bathroom after he'd gotten out of the shower. While he knew after ten years that he did love Nika and their children and did not mind giving Nika as many children as she wished, the simple fact that his already flighty and impulsive Nika basically went insane due to the hormonal changes involved in pregnancy was a very large incentive for him to make himself scarce during her last four to five months of confinement. He also made certain that everyone and everything was taken care of during his absences.

Hiring a midwife, (Nika was more comfortable with a midwife than an OB/GYN due to her Russian background) to live in, any extra help that their housekeeper/nanny required to handle Nika's condition, the children and her regular work, increased security for the jobs that he usually managed himself, and doing his best to see to it that he managed to meet every fatherly obligation that he had for his children as well was a well-established set of tasks now. He had managed to never miss a birthday, school function, sport meet (all of his children, boys and girls alike, were involved with or were looking forward to playing soft foam ball or paintball in their local league) or holiday. He'd been late on several occasions due to travel conditions, but he'd never actually missed a date.

"I'm not that bad!" Nika protested. 47 threw her a disbelieving look before reaching for his towel. "You just don't want to see me get all fat."

"Nika, you know that's not true," 47 protested. He hated this conversation. They had it each and every time they found out there was another child on the way. "Your mood swings are bad."

"Big, bad hitman afraid of a little mood swing," she sniffed. "You aren't afraid of anything."

"Nika, you once threw a vase at my head and simultaneously declared I was the best husband ever because I remembered our anniversary," he reminded her. "And I'm not afraid of them. I'm just smart enough to avoid them whenever possible. As for you getting fat, you were so starved when we first met that you couldn't have gotten pregnant even if you'd wanted to. I did not find that attractive. You were far too skinny. I like the fact that you have curves now."

He pulled her back into his chest and set his chin on the top of her head. They looked at each other in the mirror. The sheer uncertainty in the look on her face was like a knife in his chest. Having had the displeasure before, he was more aware than most of how accurate that description was. "I love you." The admission was whispered into her ear.

Nika turned around and touched her forehead to his. She knew how hard such admissions were for her husband to make. He was as damaged as she was due to how he had been raised and it was hard to beat the damage that was done to a person when they were sold as a sex slave. That was the real reason that she never tried to stop him from working, even though the sight of him killing was something that had been burned into her nightmares. She just tried to nudge him in the direction of those who deserved to die.

To herself she also had to admit that he really did seem to like her body after their children were born. He certainly did enjoy watching her nurse the baby. It was a hell of a lot better kink to deal with than being whipped to get a man turned on. Gently she brushed her hand over the back of his head; where under his dark hair sat a bar code tattoo. In return, he brushed his thumb over the dragon that adorned her cheek.

Once more content with each other, they were reaching to kiss when a small girl burst into the bathroom. "DADDY! Eric put jam in my gun!" she fussed as she held up a very sticky soft foam rifle.

"And why did you leave your rifle where the baby could get at it?" Nika huffed. "You know your little brother could eat the foam and get sick."

47 took the small rifle and reached for a washcloth. He wiped carefully at the strawberry jam. "It looks like Eric is practicing his throwing skills," he informed Nika. "Go get your cleaning kit Christy and we'll fix it."

"Thanks Daddy!" the five year old beamed up at her father and then ran back out of the bathroom, intent on getting the cleaning kit.

"You make a wonderful father," Nika smiled at him.

"You don't mind that I'm teaching them my skills?" he asked. He wasn't trying to hide it from her and she had never said anything against it, but he'd never put it so baldly before.

"If something happens and you can't get to them, I want them to be able to defend themselves," she said simply. "I did wonder where you managed to find such tiny weapons though."

"Over the internet," he said simply. "Paintball and soft foam weapons teach the skills without the children needing to deal with the kickback from using real bullets until they're older and stronger. The way my trainers used them also broke down our natural objections to causing true harm to others."

They moved into their bedroom and got dressed. "When will you give them real bullets?" Nika asked.

"Nadine is almost old enough, but I wanted to talk to you about it first. If you really objected, we would have had to deal with that before I could teach her to use a real gun," 47 told her.

"How old were you when you were given a real weapon?" Nika asked.

"Are you asking about the weapon, when I was taught to kill, or the first time I did kill someone?" 47 asked her in return. There were large differences in the questions, not that he wouldn't answer her. No matter which question she was asking she had every right to know. She'd never asked any of those types of questions before, but with her children's future on the table it was only logical that she would finally ask.

Nika snorted in disgust at the thought of the men who had trained her husband. "Those jackasses were training you to kill from the moment they took you from where ever it was you were born. I'm sure that they gave you real weapons much too early, but I trust you to know when it is right for our children." She shrugged. "I guess I'm just curious, so whatever you want to answer is alright with me."

47 took her hand and led her out the door, his free hand holding the sticky rifle. "I began training in martial arts quite literally from the time I could walk, so in a way you're right about my trainers. They began training me with real weapons when I was physically coordinated enough to handle them. Within two years I knew how to clean and care for any number of weapons, although using them with any accuracy was still out of the question. The first time I saw someone die, I was five years old I think. It's hard to judge because they never told us our ages, so sometime between four and six would be my best guess based on how the children are growing. They would bring in prisoners and have the older boys kill them while the rest of us watched. It was years before I was considered skilled enough to kill one; maybe six years after that."

"Mom, how did you meet Dad?" Nadine asked as 47 and Nika walked into the dining room. No one who had once been acquainted with either of them would have recognized the child's parents now. Not only did 47 have hair, having stopped shaving his head unless he was working although he kept it short, but he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, something that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Nika had grown out her hair and now wore it in braids, and also wore jeans and a modest blouse; something the scantily dressed prostitute would never have been allowed to wear. "Or is that a make something up question?" she asked, noticing the slight upturn of her father's mouth that meant he was laughing as he shot a look at her mother before he set her little sister's soft foam gun down on the table.

Christy immediately put her cleaning kit next to her father's plate and claimed the seat next to his. The dining room was family only to prevent such questions from being heard by those who should not know about the family's real background. Mrs. Townsend, who was their housekeeper and nanny, was considered family which was a good thing as she was busy feeding Eric and supervising the rowdy group at the table.

Everyone knew that there was something about Mr. Cooper's business that wasn't talked about, although most believed that it was because as a security professional the details were classified. Very few were aware of the true nature of 47's profession, but Mrs. Townsend and Mr. Townsend, (who ran the security staff) were among them. "Why do you ask?" Nika wanted to know.

"It's for school. My teacher wants us to make a family history report to share with class. It's a diversity thing," Nadine dismissed the reason for the assignment, more concerned with what she could and couldn't say to her classmates.

47 and Nika were honest, (sometimes brutally so if it was necessary) with their children about their pasts, having come to the conclusion when they first discovered they were to be parents that shielding their children would only place them in danger should the Organization come after them. Nika bit her lip, and 47 volunteered, "I kidnapped her from her apartment."

The four oldest children stopped in their tracks, forks, spoons and cleaning kit paused in their motion and the youngest two looked around curiously at the sudden cessation of movement. "Mom was part of a hit?" Alexander gasped out loud what they were all thinking. He was the oldest boy at seven years old.

"I was told she was a witness, something that didn't make any sense as the hit I had just finished was done as a sniper, much too far away for anyone to see me. I had been set up and I had to go back and officially kill the target again," 47 told him.

"He dragged me out of my apartment, threw me in the trunk of his car with the body of my driver and then took me to where he could safely question me," Nika actually smiled at the memory. "He saved my life that night. My driver was going to kill me."

"Why?" Christy wanted to know.

"Because I was the only one who knew a very important secret about the man who owned me," Nika said. "He had a double, an impersonator that looked just like him. He was a very bad man and your father had been hired to kill him."

"Your mother helped me to finish the job," 47 told them, shortening an eventful and dangerous time into a single sentence.

"Then your daddy sent me the deed to this vineyard, and by the time I'd gotten this place up and running the way it should be we were married and Nadine was on the way." Nika grinned over at her husband. "I'm very, very glad I opened that door." There was no doubt about the love she had for him and the children all breathed a sigh of relief and got back to the serious business of eating breakfast.

"So, Mom got involved in Dad's work which I'm not allowed to talk about, but he rescued her from a very bad man," Nadine reworded the information. Her mother nodded and began eating her own breakfast.

"Who is ready for the game?"47 asked. He'd been supervising Christy's cleaning and it was now complete.

"ME!" shouted Christy, brandishing her now clean weapon.


	3. Chapter 3

New York State

FBI Missing Persons Special Agent Waters cursed under his breath. Over 800 boys, all with shaved heads and various injuries, ranging from black eyes to broken ribs, stared back at him from the school bleachers, although they were most likely actually watching the other agents as he was standing off to the side. Each and every one of them, from the youngest baby of two months old they'd found in the nursery area to the nearly eighteen year olds was likely to be a kidnapping victim.

They'd found the so-called school by accident, (one that they had later found out was arranged) when they were following the trail of a kidnapped newborn. The kidnapper, who was probably one of the stupidest procurers that it had ever been Waters misfortune to run into, had taken the wrong child by mistake from the daycare center. He'd meant to take the boy in the next bassinet, a boy born to a teenage mother who likely wouldn't miss him, not with her background. In fact Waters had even heard her mutter something about wishing that her child had been taken, something that Waters would never be able to understand even if he did see far too much of it.

Instead, he'd taken the newborn son of a rather wealthy business man who, naturally, had been extremely upset. Waters was simply glad that the man hadn't taken a page from that idiot movie where the father had put a hit out on the kidnapper. That would have been a nightmare. Instead he had called the FBI and that had led to a manhunt, not that it was much of one. The idiot hadn't even thought to cover his tracks. He'd led them straight to this so-called school. The only thing they taught the kids here was how to kill, in more ways than Waters had ever thought possible.

"It wouldn't surprise me to find out that most of them were kidnapped although it's doubtful that's true with the number of throw-away children in this world," Miss Diana (as the boys called her) said. She was the only member of the school's staff willing to help his men. Technically she was a whistle blower, and as such had protection under the law, because she was the one who had arranged for the bungled kidnapping in the first place, up to and including choosing the idiot in question.

"Why are you helping us?" he asked her. Even if she did have immunity under US law, this case had quickly escalated into an international one, and there were some countries that were not as understanding.

"For 47's sake," she bluntly admitted. "You do know that not one of those boys has a name, just a number?" He nodded. If ever there was a sign of massive mental abuse; that was it. Dehumanizing them by refusing to give them names was only slightly less horrific than the barcode tattooed on the back of each boy's head. It reminded him far too much of the numbers inked on WW2 work camp survivors.

"Well, I was a handler ten years ago. That boy might as well have been the son I never had, Special Agent Waters. We got to know each other very well over the years we worked together. 47 was a good man. He was the best assassin they ever created and they turned around and betrayed him simply because he was the best. They thought that he would go rouge because he would be able to command higher fees than they were paying him." She dismissed that possibility out of hand. "47 never cared for extravagances. His greatest indulgence was wearing red ties. The money was little more than a means to an end for him, a way to make certain that he could complete his contracts in the most efficient way possible and to ensure his own security. That is why I worked to betray them in turn. There was no one else who could bring him or any of the other boys justice."

"Is he alright, or will we find him in the deceased files?" Waters asked. He knew that it was more than likely that 47 was dead. These people were not above executing their own people, and they had even less qualms about killing these boys either as children or as adults. From what he'd seen just skimming through the most recent files, they even sent the boys out to kill each other. These kids had no one to turn to. He was just glad that Diana was as attached to this young man as she had been. Thanks to her, they could now put a stop to this abomination.

"As much as I would like to think otherwise, I'm sure he's dead," Diana admitted. "His last assignment was nothing more than a death sentence, although he did survive it. He even completed the contract, although the only payment he received was ownership of a slave girl. His ownership of that girl was nothing more than a joke. She had him wrapped around her little finger. I hadn't realized it until just before he died three months later, but they abused him so badly here that he couldn't even recognize the fact that he'd fallen in love with her. That's why I chose this way to pay back the Organization for what they did. I couldn't let any more boys lose that."

"You're kidding," Interpol Agent Jenkins said. Interpol had been called in once the school's records were looked at and it was discovered that many of the children had come from overseas. Agents Whittaker and Jenkins had been sent because of their familiarity with the Organization, the school's sponsor.

Diana shook her head. "No, I'm quite serious. He was supposed to kill his lady because she was a witness or rather she was a loose end as she'd never seen him before. The client simply did not wish to pay the extra fee for a hit on her. Instead he let her live which was something that he never did. It was unprofessional and he was never unprofessional.

"I was able to watch the two of them together for a short time with the surveillance equipment that was a part of every vehicle issued to every agent. He was completely head over heels for her, and hadn't a clue. I'll never forget the look on his face as she teased him. He was completely confused and running on instinct." Her voice hardened. "Being the best assassin in the world should not have prevented him from having that knowledge, and I'll never forgive them for treating him that way."

Napa Valley

"Here they come!" a voice rang out of the babble that was staging area for the local paintball field. The junior soft foam and paintball league was the brainchild and personal project of Jack Cooper, who not only sponsored most of the league out of his own pocket, but also had his four oldest children on one of the soft foam teams. The sight of the Cooper family entering the area was a welcome one to many of the families who participated. Jack was willing to teach child and adult alike in the intricacies of the sport, and as a security contractor he knew a great deal more about how to make things safe, interesting, and more 'real to life' than anyone else. "Hey Jack, could you come check these guns? I think they're running a little too hot."

"No problem," 47 answered, and handed his gear over to Nika. She took the gear and continued to herd their children over to the picnic area. This was closest to the empty field where the smallest children would shoot their soft foam weapons at each other and learned the basics of team play. Most of the parents liked to sit here to watch and cheer their little ones on; especially because when the kids learned to play here they didn't play shoot the sibling/parent at home. The paintball fields were further out so as not endanger any spectators with flying paint.

47 had learned over the years to play the more outgoing persona that was required to be well liked and accepted in this community. That was one of the reasons that he had set up this playing field in the first place. The second, and in his opinion much more important, reason was to train his children against others. He checked each and every weapon before it was allowed out onto the field as he did not want anyone to be injured, least of all his children. Stings and small bruises were acceptable; broken skin, large bruises and broken bones were not, especially at this age. "Did you turn this up to play out at Jenkins?" he asked the fourteen year old boy whose weapons were using too much force.

"Yeah, I thought I had them turned down right though," he answered, disappointed.

"That's ok. Jenkins runs a good field and there's no reason that you shouldn't practice over there. I'll set up a velocity testing area so that you can get used to turning it up and down. You're almost ready to move up to the next level. You won't be in the junior league forever so the practice will do you good and not everyone can calibrate by feel like I can. Are you going to take the sniper's run today?" 47 asked.

"You think I could?" the boy's eyes popped. The soft foam teams had children from five to ten, while the paintball teams had children ten to fifteen. When a player reached fifteen, (or an adult reached a level where he or she was ready to try the harder adult games) they would take the sniper's run, although they could make an attempt at any time and some did just for fun. The sniper's run was used as a kind of graduate test where the player went up against Mr. Cooper, either by himself or if it was just for fun, in small groups.

The children kept score by how few times they were hit, rather than if they had managed to score against Mr. Cooper. Personally 47 let more than a few opportunities to shoot slide and only hit the kids when their mistakes were far too obvious for him to ignore. The idea was not to discourage them, and there was no need for him to punish them over a simple game. There had been only one time that he had ever let loose on an adult to the full extent he was capable of.

One overbearing jerk had been visiting with one of the families and pretty much let his mouth run away with him, insulting the children and adults over their participation in such a 'wimpy' exercise. 47 had let the man's insults slide at first, not wanting to get involved in an altercation over something so juvenile as name calling - right up until the man insinuated that 47 wasn't the professional that he claimed to be.

If there was one thing that 47 couldn't stand, it was to have his professionalism called into question. The last time that had happened, nearly 50 men had died so that he could complete his contract, even though he was never paid for it. One of the very few things that he prided himself on was the fact that he always completed his contracts, even if he had to kill his clients to do so. In response to the man's final insult he had the field cleared, gave the man most of his paintball equipment, and took him on the sniper's run with the stipulation that if he scored against 47 then he could continue to say what he liked. However if he was not able to score, then he would not only shut up but he would also apologize to everyone that he had just insulted. 47 would only enter the field with a single paint pistol.

The timer was set for 20 minutes and the kids were given lunch. 47 was well aware that the look on his wife's face meant that she really did not want him to kill the jerk. That was alright with him, it was far too public to ensure that the death went unnoticed, but there was no way he was going to let the man get away with anything less than complete and utter humiliation. When the two men returned from the field 20 minutes later, 47 was spotlessly clean while his opponent was nearly covered in paint – all of which was concentrated on 'kill' shots.

The smirk on the hitman's face wasn't very big, but Nika had known that it was a lot more real than any of the smiles he had given anyone else at the game and their clothes had told the story all by themselves. Nika was the only one not gloating when the man gave his apologies. She was simply too glad that the man hadn't paid for his insults with his life.

"I don't see why not," Mr. Cooper told the boy. "You should be moving up to the adult group in a few months, and you'll need to take the sniper's run at least once before then. Let me get geared up."


	4. Chapter 4

Training Center, New York State

The records rooms of the Organization's training center were remarkably different from what Mike Whittaker was expecting. Instead of a single modern room, with computers at individual stations where records could be accessed, this looked more like a library at an ancient monastery. One solid oak table stretched through the center of the main room, with an official looking desk set off to one side where someone sitting could oversee the entire area.

From the main room, smaller rooms branched off in all directions. Some of the rooms were nothing more than closets, with a single six foot tall records cabinet inside. Others held several filing cabinets and a small table with individual lights for each of the chairs. Stretched out along one side of the main room, slightly behind the desk, was what looked like a card file system. Curious, Mike wandered over and slid the first drawer out to see what sort of things were being kept track of.

The first several cards were enough to unsettle his stomach, although he was well aware of just what sort of place this was. The first card listed 'physical skills', which covered everything from how well a child had done garroting a full grown man to how long they could stay underwater without coming up for air. The last was far too detailed in the number of drownings. There were shooting score cards with several different categories; such as sniper rifles, pistols, crossbows (?WTF?), automatic weapons, as well as grenade and rocket launchers. Skill levels at hand to hand combat, explosives, and poisons were recorded right along with language and mathematics skills – so was the disposal rate per age group.

'Lord above,' Mike prayed silently. He'd known from what his ghost had told him that this was a training center. 'But he never said anything about how bad the abuse he and the other boys were subjected to had been.' He knew that his ghost was a proud man, one that refused to allow himself to look weak, and he guessed this was why, but Mike would have liked to have had a little warning about just how bad things were here.

"It's quite terrible isn't it?" a woman asked from behind him. The British accent helped him to identify the woman even as he turned around to look. 'Miss Diana' Burnwood, former Organization handler and current secretary of the so-called headmaster of the 'school' was older than he expected, in her mid-fifties to early sixties. The headmaster had struck him as one of those that would have a sexy young thing as a secretary so that he could enjoy the view and from what Mike had found in the records so far, probably other services as well. She was holding a large briefcase that she set down on the table. She then pulled a slim laptop and a thick file out, placing them just so on the table top. "The things that they do here to the boys would be unspeakable anywhere else."

"I think that it's pretty unspeakable here as well," Mike admitted, returning the cards to the drawer. He moved to sit down opposite Miss Diana at the table. "I'm very glad to be one of those helping to shut this place down. These cretins don't deserve to have custody of a dog, much less a child."

"I fully agree with you, Inspector, but let me make myself perfectly clear. I have no objections to the industry. 95 percent of the targets, especially at the level that the agents trained here operate at, are those who more than deserve to die. Unfortunately, the last five percent are simply due to Human nature, and there isn't much we can do about that," Diana said as she sat down. "My objection is now and always has been child abuse."

"Then let's see if we can find out just how these children ended up here," Mike said. "Do you have any idea where the records of the boys who are here right now are?"

"First door on your right, first filing cabinet, top drawer to bottom by year of admittance," Diana said without hesitation as she pointed in the correct direction. Bemused, Mike left to become a pack mule, filling the table with the files on the current crop of children.

It didn't take him long to discover that Miss Diana was hell on wheels on a computer. How she was able to track down the children's families from what little there was in the paper records was astonishing. That she could find positively identify a family within three hours was nearly a damned miracle, one that Mike was not about to try and figure out. This was going a hell of a lot faster than he had ever imagined it could.

Mike noticed that she kept that single file, and it was one that was quite old from the look of it, by her computer as she searched. He had the feeling that this was the file of the man Jenkins had told him about – the reason that this woman was so willing to risk her own life to bring this company down. The school had turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg. Miss Diana's information had led to the Organization's downfall, although as nearly as he could tell at this point, most of their agents were still at large, abet without handlers. That was a scary situation, fortunately for him it wasn't one that he had to deal with personally.

"I don't blame you for his death," Diana said out of the blue.

"What?" Mike asked, confused. He had just brought her another stack of files.

"You killed 47," Diana said simply. Mike suddenly realized exactly who she was talking about. His ghost was the only Organization hitman that anyone could say that he had killed, even if he hadn't actually done the deed. He hoped desperately that no one walked in on them. This was the last conversation that he ever wanted to get out. Being fired for letting his ghost go would be the least of his worries if that happened.

"I don't blame you for his death," she repeated. "I have no doubt that you were only defending yourself. I blame the Organization. They were the ones responsible for his being there. They demanded that he remove you because you were getting too close to him. He should have been safely on the other side of the world, preparing for his next assignment or anything other than being in your home." The grief that showed on the woman's face did not impede her hands in the slightest, and Mike was willing to bet that this woman was one of the reasons that his ghost, and apparently her 47, had been the best hitman in the world. "They wanted him dead."

"Could I see that file?" he asked as gently as he could. She glanced at the file and carefully placing a gentle hand on top of it, slid it across the table to Mike. He opened the cover and there staring at him from the picture was the one man that Mike had let get away from him. Well, he'd had good reasons to let 47 go, not the least of which was the fact that the man would have killed not only him, but his wife and both of his daughters as well if he'd been stupid enough to try and arrest him on that night.

At least he would be able to help this woman who had done so much for his investigation. There was no reason to let her continue grieving and every reason to let her know that 47 was still alive. He glanced around and seeing that they were very much alone, not that he had thought that anyone had snuck into the main room while he was out, quietly spoke. "He's not dead. He had me fake his death so that he could retire from the business alive. Between the threat to my family's lives and what he had told me about this school, I was more than willing to let him go."

"Are you toying with me Inspector?" Diana asked with a voice full of ice. Her hands had paused in their flight over her keyboard and her blue eyes snapped with the sort of hatred that Mike had seen far too often in multiple murder cases. Mike shook his head. He was certainly not about to do that. This woman could have his entire life tied up in knots without moving from her computer, and that was if she was feeling generous. If she wasn't, then Mike had no doubt that he would be the very next subject of the industry's target list.

"I have no idea where he is, but from what you've said to Jenks that he told me in turn and what 47 said to me the night he set up his escape, I think he found a reason to escape with the woman he was working with in Saint Petersburg. She saved my life and my partner's when we tried to catch 47 at the train station. She asked him to stop killing when he had one of his pistols aimed at my head. To my knowledge her request was the only time he's ever let a witness live. He must love her very much to indulge her like that." He passed the file back to her. "I never did figure out who she was and I did try. I've never been able to thank her for what she did that day no matter how much I want to."

Diana sat there for a moment with tears in her eyes and hands over her mouth. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well, it looks like we have another file to try and find family for then," she said with a smile. She gently took the file and placed it next to the file she was currently researching. Mike had no doubt that she would be able to find 47's birth family. The only question was whether or not that particular set of parents would survive the discovery. If they had given, or worse sold, 47 to the Organization Mike did not give them very good odds at surviving Diana's wrath. On the other hand, if they hadn't been responsible for 47's induction into the Organization, there were those out there who would gladly kill them just for being 47's parents. Their best bet for survival would be for them to find 47 quickly so that he could protect them.


	5. Chapter 5

New York City

'It's bad enough that Mom and Kelly are in the hospital, but having the FBI call with what is going to be another dead end on Steven is just the icing on the cake.' Grace Wilkins studiously ignored the same thing that she had pointed out to her father – that the FBI hadn't called since they'd moved Steven's case to the cold case files as she marched her way through the snowy New York City street on her way to the FBI building. Just over three and a half decades had passed since then, and she knew that with the new technology that was now in place many cold cases were being solved; but just as many were left unsolved and she was bound and determined not to get her hopes up.

The long procedures that were required to get into the FBI building actually settled Grace down, not because now that she was actually in the building itself she was more optimistic, but because the security was stringent enough to give her ideas for her next book. She'd have to ask Tony what he'd do to get around them but fake identification was the least of it, as she was also patted down and sent through a metal detector. Perhaps she'd use a garrote inside of a belt as a murder method this time.

Grace was stunned when she finally arrived at the massive office she was directed to in the FBI building. It wasn't the missing persons regular office, but a bullpen type that took up an entire floor, with only a couple of personal offices off to one side. She'd thought the receptionist had shot her a sympathetic look, but nothing could have prepared her to see what had to be at least fifty couples, about half of them with a young boy with a shaved head and a barcode tattoo sitting somewhere nearby, talking with various agents. She suddenly had the feeling that she was walking into something much more involved than a simple case of some nut snatching a newborn baby boy. "Can I help you Miss?" a harried agent asked her as she stopped inside the door.

"Um, I think so?" she asked, her confusion very evident. "My family was called about an old kidnapping case," she began.

"We just arrested every adult inside an all-boys boarding school. The students were all kidnapped or orphans," the agent interrupted her, waving a hand around the office. "Most likely the child who was taken in your case had a file in the records over there. Can you tell me the FBI case number?" He posed with his hands over his keyboard, waiting for the number.

Grace rattled off the number she and her siblings knew by heart. Her brother Steven had been kidnapped when he was a week old, but although her parents had been stubborn about pursuing the case, they'd never neglected their other children for the one who was missing. That had led all of their remaining children to be very sympathetic to their missing brother. "Oh man, this is 47's case," the agent muttered. "Come with me," he said and led her deeper into the office.

Grace was curious about the man's words, but didn't ask because it was obvious that the poor man was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work that was involved in bringing the boys back to their parents. At least, that's what she assumed was happening, considering the number of boys and their almost identical appearance. Plus, she was hopeful that whoever it was that had called her family would be able to explain everything. "Sir, a woman is here about 47," the agent said as he opened a door that led to one of the personal offices.

"Thank you agent," a voice with a British accent said, and the agent ushered her into the room. "Hello ma'am. I'm Inspector Whittaker, Interpol and this is Miss Diana Burnwood, former Organization handler. Could you tell me what you know so that I can fill in the blanks?"

Grace was motioned to one of the two chairs in front of the large desk that dominated the office. She noticed that Miss Burnwood, a matronly looking older woman, didn't have to search through the enormous amount of files that covered the table to the right of the desk. The file she brought to the desk was very large, and very old, filled with a large amount of paperwork and pictures.

"My name is Grace Wilkins and my father was called about my brother Steven earlier this morning. Steven was kidnapped when he was a week old and we haven't seen him since. There hasn't been any trace or progress in his case for decades although my mother still calls the agents in the cold case department every month to check. My family sent me here to talk to the agents who called because I'm the only one who can be spared right now. My mother and sister were in a car accident last weekend. They're still in the hospital. The agent who brought me in here said that they just arrested the staff of an all-boys school because the kids were kidnapped or orphans. That's all I know," she shrugged. She wondered if she could add some of this into her story as a motive. It certainly was dramatic enough to catch people's attention.

"Ok, it gets a bit complicated and fantastical, but bear with me," Mike said as Diana sat down next to him behind the desk with 47's file. "The Organization has been in operation for nearly forever as far as we can tell. We still haven't found the beginnings of their records. The school that was shut down was their training center. They would abduct baby boys from all over the world, either buying them from their families or outright kidnapping them. They took these boys and trained them, programing them to do one thing – to kill. They were in the business of providing the world with professional hitmen. They were totally neutral, taking contracts only if they met the required price, no other standard needed."

He sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "This brings us to you and your family. Your brother was one of the boys taken and raised at this training center. We've confirmed that by comparing the DNA information your parents included in the FBI case file and the DNA information in 47's Organization file. They didn't give the boys names, just numbers you see, and none of the boys were old enough to remember anything different. Your brother Steven did grow up as number 47. Diana here was his handler." He tapped the file and Grace could see the label only held a large string on numbers – one that ended with a 4 and a 7.

Diana smiled. "I'm pleased to be able to meet with you. 47 and I worked together for years. I got to know him very well. He was the best in the business, but he was also a good man. He escaped the Organization ten years ago when they betrayed him. We have reason to believe that he was involved at the time with a woman named Nika Boronina. It is my hope that if he didn't marry her, that they are at least still together. She was good for him on a personal basis."

Grace took a deep breath. "How badly was he abused, and do you have any idea where he is now?" That her brother had been abused was almost a given with the information she'd just been told. All of a sudden the idea of using this experience as part of her next book made her sick. She wasn't ashamed of the fact that she wrote murder mysteries or that her protagonist was a hitman, but this was something that was far beyond what she could write about.

Diana looked at her sadly. "To survive the training he had to suppress all of his emotions, learn every skill taught and have no hesitation in using them. Most people would say that he was cold, calculating, but that was merely his ability to focus. They only saw what he wanted them to see, and he wanted them to see a cold, emotionless killer because that was how he managed to survive for so long. I saw more because I was his handler. I know that he was only hiding in a shell to protect himself, one that it is possible to penetrate if you can gain his trust."

She paused for a moment to give Grace time to absorb that small tidbit of positive information before continuing. "Some of the men became what you no doubt fear for your brother, blood thirsty and cruel, but he never did. Being an assassin was nothing more than a job to him, one that he had to complete as efficiently as possible and then only because he knew what would happen if he did not. He preferred subtle to outright slaughter, the least amount of people harmed rather than the most to complete his contracts. I have no idea whether or not he has continued his work as a hitman, but I seriously doubt that if he has his targets would be anyone who does not deserve the death he brings.

"As for where he is, I think I've managed to track Nika down. I certainly have attracted the attention of her security. I should know within the hour whether or not it is the same woman. Whether 47 is still with her or not is another story, and one that I am afraid I cannot tell you at this moment."

Mike snorted. "Don't let her modesty fool you. This woman is a miracle worker. I know damned sure that the woman she found is the same one that I saw in Saint Petersburg with your brother, and considering that he let me live simply because she asked, I know he's still with her baring a disaster of some kind. I know that he was trying to adjust to living more in her world than in his the last time I saw him."

"The question is now, do you want us to tell him about you and your family when we find him?" Diana asked gently. "If your family cannot handle the fact that your brother is one of the top assassins in the world, then it would be far kinder for all of us to forget that this conversation ever happened."

Grace closed her eyes and got a grip on her emotions. This was not the time to break down and have hysterics no matter how much she wanted to, although the information that Steven was an assassin, even if he might be retired, was not a problem for her and would not likely be for the rest of her family either. It was an open secret that Tony was a hitman and no one objected to him. "I need to talk to my family," she said quietly. "Please don't say anything to him until we've had a chance to think about this." Mike and Diana nodded with understanding and watched as Grace left the office.

"He'll be here in New York inside of twenty four hours, if he isn't already," Mike predicted.

"I simply hope that they can accept him and his past. I don't want to give him bad news," Diana fretted. The last time she had spoken to 47 the news she had for him had been that he'd been betrayed by the Organization. She hadn't even dared to tell him why.

"He'd understand," Mike said confidently. "Just knowing that they hadn't thrown him away is the best news anyone could give him."


	6. Chapter 6

New York City

Across the street and up on the roof of the building opposite 47 sat up from looking through his sniper scope at the FBI office that Mike and Diana were currently using and removed the ear piece of the bug that he'd planted on Mike when he'd bumped into him on the street earlier that morning. The cold and snowy weather had made it too perfect a chance to pass up, even if he'd had to sit outside on a stake out to make use of it. This however, this was…unexpected.

47 had heard about the shut-down of the Organization and its training center. He'd even heard that Diana, his former handler, was behind it. He had known for years just how capable Diana was and had no doubt that she was able to accomplish something that had been deemed impossible. That was one of the reasons why he was here, to confirm what he'd heard and to see if he could get access to his own file, if only to find out if there were any sort of surprises hidden in his background, like a family or at least racial, medical history of severe illness. There were always things that only showed up later in life, and while he had never remembered getting sick there were his children to think about now.

He suddenly felt a glimmer of guilt that he hadn't let Diana know that he was still alive. She'd risked her own life to save his and she was the one person in the Organization that he actually trusted. He simply hadn't wanted to place her in any further danger. There were many ways to retire a handler, and not all of them were painless. If the Organization had found out that he had escaped them, and with her help, then she would have died a very painful death.

47 had even heard that a great number of the boys at the training center had been kidnapped and that the FBI was working to return them to their families. When he'd thought about it, it had made a sort of sick sense. Prenatal health has direct consequences on a person's later life, and the Organization wanted the boys to be perfectly healthy and able to perform the necessary tasks of carrying out a hit. A woman carrying a child who is in good circumstances is more likely to produce such a child than a teenager, poor woman or a whore. He'd simply never thought of himself as possibly one of those children, or that his parents – no _his_ _family,_ might be looking for him, and if he had, he certainly wouldn't have thought that they would believe him to be alive after all this time.

The woman, _his_ _sister_, was going to go back to speak with the rest of their family to see if they wanted anything to do with him. 47 wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer, the chances were exceedingly slim that any normal family would actually want to have any contact with an admitted serial killer, but he did know that the question would plague him if he did not find out. He broke down his sniper rifle, placed it back in its case, (a very modern, plain and expensive suitcase) and moved into position to follow her.

Grace was easy to follow, something that 47 had expected. She wasn't likely to be in the business in any of its forms, and the information that Mike and Diana had given her had to be distracting. That was made even easier by the weather and the fact that she was walking rather than taking a taxi or the subway. She went directly to the ICU of one of the local hospitals. Car accidents weren't known for their kind treatment of the people involved in them, so 47 wasn't surprised. In fact, he'd have been surprised if her, no _their,_ mother and sister were able to sustain conscious thought yet. From what he understood, those who were so badly injured that they required the care of an ICU spent the majority of their time unconscious.

He hid the suitcase with his sniper rifle in the closet of an empty room before slipping up to one of the waiting rooms where he saw Grace with two men. Both of them were a little over six feet, (one and two inches respectively) with the same dark hair and build that he had, but where he and Grace had dark eyes, they had bright blue. The older man wiped at his face, and 47 settled in to listen just out of their sight. It wasn't as efficient as the bug that he'd placed on Mike, but it would do for now. "Steven's a hitman?"

Grace nodded. All three of them were obviously trying to absorb the shock of what sort of life he'd been living. He still wasn't sure if he wanted them to accept it or not. He was in the process of trying to come to terms with the idea that he had once had a name, and the fact that he had four siblings, two sisters and two brothers, was just as shocking to him as his profession was to them. "Sounds cool," the younger of the two men said.

"GREG!" Grace snapped, exasperated. 47 didn't blame her for it. It looked to him like their youngest brother wasn't taking this seriously either.

Greg shrugged unconcerned in the face of his sister's ire. "Let's face it. None of us are going to be number one of anything on this planet. It's cool that Steven managed to get to the top of his list. Ok, it isn't a list that I would ever want to be on or want him to be on, but let's face it – he never had a choice about that." That was an understatement, but 47 didn't bother to respond to the inane statement.

"No he didn't," the still unnamed brother said. "And there isn't anything we can do about that. It's in the past. What I want to know is if Interpol or anyone else wants him. They obviously know about us, and I won't be used against Steven, not for anything." That was promising, 47 knew, although it did nothing to stifle the unrest dancing up and down his nerves. He'd been less nervous on his first hit, although he didn't show it now any more than he had then.

"The Interpol guy, Inspector Whittaker, said that Steven escaped from the people who took him ten years ago. He was working with Steven's handler, whatever that is, and her sympathy was very much with Steven. The rest of us could go take a flying leap if we weren't in his corner was the impression I got from her. Whittaker gave me the impression that he knew Steven and wasn't looking to send him to prison," Grace sighed as she ran both of her hands through her mass of dark curls.

"Look, Steven's alive. That's all that matters," Greg said. "I'm sure that he knows how to take care of himself. Honestly, I don't care what his job is. I want to get to know my big brother."

"Mathew?" Grace asked.

Mathew looked over at his siblings. "I want to get to know him, get back some of what we should have had. That's much more important to me."

"It's unanimous then," Grace said. Mathew and Greg shot each other a look. Then each grabbed a pillow from the couches they'd been sleeping on and began hitting their sister with them in revenge for keeping her own thoughts on the subject to herself. The pillow fight and laughter the three of them were trying to stifle amused 47 because it was something he recognized from his own children's behavior. His cell phone vibrated just as an older man with black hair going to steel grey approached the three who looked guilty when they saw him.

47 split his attention between his cell and the quiet confrontation between his siblings and the man who turned out to be their father. Grace was busy telling David Wilkins about what she'd discovered. As it was something that was becoming a bit repetitious for 47, he skimmed through the files that Townsend had sent him on the background checks he'd ordered his chief of security to run on Grace and her family. Grace was a mystery writer, fairly successful with a short series to her credit. She had no current boyfriend, nor any children, but she volunteered at her local library and worked in the children's section. She also babysat her brother Mathew's children so that he and his wife did not have to pay for the childcare that they could not afford.

Mathew was a New York City bus driver. He was married to a woman named Kristine who worked as a part time clerk in a wine shop at the closest shopping center to their home and they had six children. 47 was startled at the coincidence but did nothing more than blink before moving onto the next bit of information. Mathew was friends with a known 'cleaner', (what the Organization considered to be a talented amateur) for the local mafia. 'Well, that certainly explains his reaction,' 47 thought. He glanced over at Mathew. His brother was leaning against the wall, listening to David Wilkin's update on the injured ladies. Townsend had dug deeper into that connection but there was nothing other than friendship between the two men.

Gregory was the manager of an upscale New York men's clothing store, one that 47 recognized as one that he would normally shop at. He was single, but had a steady girlfriend. The girlfriend was a secretary at a real estate brokerage firm named Candy. Townsend warned that in spite of her name, Candy was both highly intelligent and had a high level of common sense. She was someone that a man in his position had to be very careful of. All of Greg and Candy's friends checked out as harmless.

Kelly was the sister involved in the car accident. There were no indicators of any sort of trouble in her background. She was a surprise, late life child that was a junior in high school. She had no current boyfriend, having dumped the last one a month previous. From what Townsend had found out about the boy, (a football player who was more interested in how many females he could sleep with than in having a real relationship) 47 was very glad that Kelly had come to the conclusion that he wasn't worth her time.

Taking the boy out of the picture really wasn't a good way to introduce himself into Kelly's life, or at least that's what Nika would have said. She had been telling him for a while now that he wasn't allowed to kill Nadine's or the twin's boyfriends when they began dating unless the boys actively tried to physically harm the girls. 47 had been surprised to discover that he was disappointed that he was only allowed to scare them. While there was no doubt that he was a cold blooded killer, he'd never given much thought to actually wanting to kill someone before.

David Wilkins and his wife Samantha were as clean as their children. David was a retired railroad engineer and Samantha was a librarian. They were all quite normal. The very idea of just how vulnerable these people were gave 47 a chill. Even the least talented of his fellow Organization trained assassins could easily kill this entire family without breaking a figurative sweat or getting caught. He couldn't imagine living like that. At any rate, he really did not have time for this distraction. He had a drug dealer to kill.


	7. Chapter 7

New Jersey

Subtle hits were always 47's preference. Going in guns blazing was fun once in a while, (such as he had done when he'd taken out Udre Bellicoff) but it was almost guaranteed to call attention that he really did not want. The only reason that he'd even done that was because Udre hadn't been planning on leaving his little palace for some time and leaving the place shot up really didn't make a difference in the long run. Most people had expected that Udre would die a violent death, and as he had expected, no one had ever really gone looking for the person responsible. The only people who could have identified him were the slave girls, and honestly he hoped that they had taken the opportunity to run, but even if they hadn't, they had thought he was a gunrunner named Price, someone who really did exist. Well, he had until three months afterwards when 47 had shot him so that Mike would have a body to bury in his place.

The only thing that he had problems with that night had been Nika getting drunk and trying to seduce him. He really hadn't wanted to sedate her, but he really hadn't had much choice. He only had a short time to get to Udre before the bodies of Price's bodyguards had been found. Nor had it helped that he really hadn't known just how to deal with her in that state. Even then he had been far too aware of just how beautiful a woman she was. It had been the absolute worst timing that he had objected to. He had no intention of rushing his first time, no matter how beautiful or willing she was. He had feared that she would make things more difficult the next morning because of his rejection, but Nika never reacted the way he expected her to. She had actually been acting sort of pleased and shy when they got dressed the next morning. He still had no idea why, but he hadn't been about to object to getting out of that situation with his skin intact, and he had made it up to her a few months later.

Peter Wallace wasn't in Udre's league money wise, but he was still about as nasty a piece of work as he had ever been contracted to kill. He ran drugs and prostitutes, as well as a little loan sharking on the side. It wasn't anything that a hundred others didn't do in this same city, but Wallace had sold a bad batch of drugs to a sorority and several of the college girls had died. Again, it really wasn't that unusual, except in this case one of the parents of those dead girls had the money and the connections to contact him.

Now tonight, Wallace was going to die at 47's hands. He was actually grateful that this contract had come up at this time. Nika had been a little depressed lately, he knew it was only the hormones but still, having a pimp as a target was one of the things that he knew would make her smile. She had a personal hatred of them that went bone deep due to her background. They were one of the very few types of targets that she would ask him to make their deaths painful. He was always more than willing to grant her wishes. Her requests were the only ones that ever trumped a client's, not that many would ask him to deliver a painless death.

Wallace would sit in state at the bar of a night club, surrounded by his bodyguards and the partygoers and watching various package boys bringing in money, drugs and messages from his lieutenants around the area that he had his various businesses in. He would not leave that night club for days, and then he would only leave in order to switch to a new club or venue to repeat the process all over again.

There were several ways that 47 could take the man's life right at the bar, from the simple but bloody and public to quiet, subtle and unnoticed, but the client's request was for Wallace to die of a drug overdose that would make him experience everything those girls had gone through, from the ambulance ride to a long, slow and agonizing death. That made the job a little trickier, but not too difficult. It was a reasonable request considering why the contract had been taken out in the first place.

Wallace was a fanatic about what he ate or drank as he was highly suspicious of his competitors, believing that they would try to get him hooked on their drugs to control him. Personally 47 thought that Wallace was simply paranoid because that was hardly the easiest, or most efficient, way to take over the man's operations. Unfortunately for him, tonight that paranoia would be his downfall rather than his salvation. 47 had found out where the drinks that were reserved for Wallace were stored as well as the glasses, plates and utensils that he alone used through several recon trips to the club during the day when most, if not all, of the people in the building were asleep. The tiny cameras he used were almost invisible to the naked eye, and no one had ever noticed them, although 47 used them sparingly. He did not wish to become dependent on any one piece of equipment in his arsenal.

The club was quiet now at midday, and 47 had no trouble breaking in from the roof for the last time. He immediately went to the kitchen, carefully avoiding the few bodyguards who were up at this hour and pulling out his lock picks, opened the chest that contained the dishes. Taking a vial out of his pocket, he carefully painted each fork and spoon with the clear liquid inside. The liquid only took a minute to dry, and was undetectable by sight, taste or smell. He then relocked the chest and went to the cupboard where the drinks were stored.

47 removed a syringe filled with yet another colorless liquid out of a case he had carried in another pocket. This liquid was added to each of the bottles in precise amounts. This was the second portion of the poison. The thing that 47 liked most about this poison was that it only worked if you ingested all of the portions. Anyone who ingested only one or two portions of the poison would feel nothing, nor would there be any trace of the poison should some over eager physician try to check every person around the target. The person who ingested all of it however, would suffer the one of the worst deaths that 47 knew how to deal out. The four days of torture it would take the target to die as he slowly succumbed to the poison were more than enough to fulfill the client's request.

There was no cure for the poison nor anyway to relieve any of the symptoms. In fact, the usual treatments would only acerbate the problems. There wasn't any work being done in that direction either, not even among the Organization's poison specialists who had created it. Usually when a new poison was created, the creator made certain that he at least, had an antidote. This was not the case for this particular poison as the Organization had intended to use it as a backup plan for agents that were too good to be retired by their fellow assassins.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies had developed poisons that worked similarly, but used only two portions, but that was considered by the Organization to be too risky to those surrounding the targets. After all, if the client was close to the target, (and there were more than a few times when that had happened for various reasons) the last thing the Organization wanted was the risk of the client being killed along with the target. They wouldn't get paid if the client died. The Organization's poison recipe called for three different ingredients, one of which had to be administered in person as to make certain that only the target was killed.

47 left the club as easily as he had entered, removing his cameras, locking the doors behind him and leaving no trace that he had ever been there. Then he went to get himself some lunch. He had hours before it would be time to administer the last of the poison. One of the great things about having a contract in New York City was the abundance of high class restaurants and shops. Although he was disciplined enough to eat whatever was available, 47 did like to eat foods that tasted as good as they were healthy. He did not eat junk food unless it was the only option available, and even then he preferred whatever it was he had for breakfast in Nigeria.

South Fin Grill met his standards and also had a view of the harbor. Although he wasn't one to enjoy a view for the view itself, Nika was and she had taught him that some views were better than others for more than just its potential as a sniper spot. This one wasn't bad, although it was far too exposed for his liking. The worst part was that at the moment, he had nothing but time on his hands and the exposure reminded him of his birth family. It didn't take him long to decide that, at the very least, his mother and little sister deserved some protection.

It only took a single phone call to manage that and he was still left with several hours on his hands. Fortunately, Townsend had reminded him that Christmas was coming. There was a unique toy store that he'd heard about, Dinosaur Hill, that sounded as though it had toys that were worth looking at – such as a Russian alphabet block set for Demyan, actual marionettes and hand puppets for the twins (who apparently had their Aunt Grace's talent for storytelling), and unique, all wooden teething toys for Eric. Perhaps if he found something nice enough he could get Nika to stop giving the children one of his wooden garrotes when they were teething.

The toy store far surpassed his expectations, enough so that he had barely made his way through half of the store before he had made all of the purchases and more. 47 hadn't known that there were so many different languages among the alphabet blocks and had picked up several sets from every language offered. While not every child had the same linguistic abilities, he did want to make sure that they were never in a position where they could not at least make themselves understood, even if they weren't fluent in the local language. It had saved his life on a few occasions. As his time had run out and he had to go prepare for the final act of his hit, he promised himself that he would return later – perhaps with his brother Mathew in tow to help him figure out what his nephews and nieces would like.

47 quickly shut down that line of thought and immersed himself once more in his professional mentality as he dressed for the administration of the final portion of the poison. This was not the time to get sentimental, especially since he had no idea if the Wilkins really were going to decide to welcome him back into the family. Black jeans and a silk dress shirt was all of a disguise would he need to get into the club once it had opened, but he added a long leather duster out of experience. The guards at the door would focus on the coat, and pay less attention to anything else he might have on him.

After being cursorily searched at the door 47 roamed around the main floor of the club, looking as though he was indulging in one of those male hunting rituals Nika had once tried to explain to him, in order to pinpoint all of the bodyguards and Wallace's other people as well as the number of people at the bar by Wallace. When he judged that the crowds were at their worst, he made his way up to the bar and made certain that he was pushed into Wallace as he ordered a drink. A quick pinprick was all it took to administer the last dose.

47 faded back into the crowd with his drink and found a space along the wall where he could watch Wallace, (while looking like he was checking out the skimpily clad ladies at the bar) and waited for the poison to take effect. Thirty minutes later his patience was rewarded as Wallace began to sweat and have difficulty in breathing. Satisfied that his target was well on his way to death, 47 began to make his way out of the club. By the time he had reached the exit an ambulance was already pulling up to the sidewalk. 47 only glanced back once, and that was to make sure that Wallace was the one on the stretcher the paramedics were rushing out the door to the ambulance before continuing to walk to where he could catch a cab to his hotel. Perhaps his next hit would require something more physical.


	8. Chapter 8

New York City

After a long talk on the phone with Nika the next morning, 47 went directly to the FBI building. As much as it went against his ingrained training, he'd left all of his weapons in his hotel room. Walking into a law enforcement building carrying the tools of his trade was just asking for trouble and that was the last thing he wanted. He wasn't used to the blatant attention he received from the FBI agents as he calmly walked through the tedious procedures needed to gain legal entrance to the building, but he managed to ignore it – mostly by thinking of ways to bypass the lax security. He estimated that it might take him as much as an hour if there was actually a reason for him to break in, rather than walking in as he was doing.

As he had been working the night before, he had shaved his head when he had showered and dressed for the club, which in turn meant that this morning his tattoo was very visible. It was obvious to anyone who had any connection to the closing of the training center that he was one of those men who had been raised there. Those who didn't have that connection had undoubtedly seen the boys as they were brought in to meet their families and recognized the unique mark as well. He knew that it wasn't very likely that they had seen any of the agents before.

The Organization scattered their agents around the world from the time they graduated from the training center at eighteen, alone except for their internet connections with their handlers, until the day they died. He firmly stopped a shudder before it could manifest at the thought of being in their position now, alone and cut off from their only stable contact. Not only did 47 have Nika and his children now, he was going to be able to contact his handler for the first time in years as well. He had missed Diana very much, and not just for her expertise at her job. No matter how well Townsend tried to do her job, he simply couldn't take the place in 47's heart that Diana's unique personality and electronically disguised voice had claimed the first time they had worked together.

47's entrance into the main office where the investigation and reuniting of child and parents was taking place caused a kind of attention wasn't all that surprising when the fact that he wasn't trying to hide himself was taken into consideration. The boys who were there fell immediately silent, sitting stiffly in their chairs. They recognized an agent when they saw one; the black suit and gloves being a dead giveaway, although his red tie had never been regulation. It was his one indulgence and Nika had turned his small and reasonable collection into something to rival a supermodel's shoe obsession. The parents sat there gawking at him, most having made the connection, and the FBI agents were very uncomfortable, not knowing what to say. Mike Whittaker stuck his head out of his borrowed office to find out what was causing the silence. "Hello Mike," 47 said, walking up to him. "You got my attention."

"Come on in," Mike waved at 47, inviting him into the inner office. "Have you been following what's been going on?" 47 nodded as he walked in and sat down. "That handler of yours is one hell of a woman."

"Yes she is, and I know that you want to know why I didn't tell her that I was alive," 47 said, leaning back in the chair.

"If you don't mind telling me," Mike admitted, while also letting 47 know that he wouldn't press for the information.

"She'd already risked retirement for me once, Mike. I couldn't put her in that situation again,"47 said. "As it was, she saved my life that night."

Mike nodded. He'd known when he was chasing 47 that the chances of taking the man in alive were slim at best. He'd heard the story about that particular night from Diana's end earlier. He'd also told her what had happened from his point of view. There was also the fact that he knew exactly what 47 meant by 'retirement'. It really was one of the worst things about this bloody business. People did not leave unless they were going six feet under. 47 was the only one that he knew of that had managed what was considered to be impossible, he'd retired alive.

"One thing I really don't understand," he began, changing the subject slightly, but asking another question that was bugging him while he had an agreeable 47 to question. "That," he pointed out the window of the office from where he was leaning against the wall beside it, "is the politest group of boys it has ever been my pleasure to meet. I know damned well and good that they're halfway trained hitmen, but why in the world would the Organization want to make them into gentlemen? You're the same way." He straightened up and walked over to sit next to 47. The last thing he wanted was to put a desk between them, especially after last time.

"Because it is a matter of professionalism," 47 explained. Mike nodded, not needing anything else to understand as probably only a born Englishman could. It came down to a matter of class, not just the sort of air that wealth gave a person, but the sort of unconscious poise that came from knowing the sorts of mannerisms of the upper class from birth. Those who had it commanded more respect than those who didn't. "You found my family," 47 said, changing the subject.

"That we did, and we've explained everything. They want to meet with you," Mike said as he slumped back in his chair. He wasn't about to push where he wasn't wanted, especially with this man. In a strange way, he really respected 47 more than feared him. He knew that if he played it straight with the ex-hit man, 47 would do the same with him, or at least as much as he could. Mike wasn't naive enough to think that he was privy to all of 47's secrets.

"I know," 47 smirked, although few would be able to tell. "I couldn't take the time to talk to you yesterday after your meeting with Grace. I just came by to drop something off and to let you know that I was in town. If you will give this to Diana, I'll be on my way." He handed over a card with an email address on it. He stood up and turned to leave, but turned back for a moment. "Mike, it's none of my business, but those boys will be far more comfortable if they're allowed to train and keep to a set schedule. SEALS or other Special Forces members might make good councilors for those who are having trouble, and even better foster parents."

Mike sat with his mouth opened for a second. "God damned jetlag." Amused 47 flashed Whittier a tiny grin (wider than one he would have given most so that Mike would actually be able to see it) before he headed back to his hotel to arm back up.

Much more comfortable with the weight of his weapons returned to their rightful place, and with a packet of pictures he'd printed off of his most secure computer file in his jacket pocket, 47 headed over to the hospital he had tracked Grace to yesterday. The waiting room was much quieter this morning than it was the day before. It appeared that the entire family, including Mathew's wife and children were there, probably because it was a Saturday. The children were watching the TV as the adults waited with varying levels of patience. 47 was simply glad that he would only have to introduce himself once. As he walked into the waiting room, Grace looked up and gasped. "Steven?"

"I'm sorry that I couldn't meet with you yesterday, but I had some business to take care of," 47 said. "Have you made your decision?" he asked, looking around the room. His insides were quailing, but he met their amassed gaze without a flinch. He was not ashamed of what he had become, and like Nika had told him, if they couldn't accept him, fuck them. He was just fine without them. He already had a family.

"We don't care what your job is, get over here and meet everybody," David said forcefully. He got up and made introductions, pointing out who was who from 47's sister Grace right down to his youngest niece April.

"Mom's in room 554 and Kelly is in the room next to her. The doctors are letting us in two at a time during visiting hours so we're taking turns. Right now we've been kicked out because they're running some tests. We've already told them both that you've been found and that you're alive," Grace told him. "We're trying to motivate Mom to fight harder."

"Makes sense," 47 said. "I hope that's all you told her. My profession might have the opposite effect. I don't want her blaming herself for what the Organization made of my life." The look that 47 shot David made it clear that he meant the message for his father as well.

"Easier said, than done," David said with a sigh. "What should we call you since I know you didn't keep the name we gave you."

"I'm living under the name of Jack Cooper, but my number is 47," he said, wondering if any of them would understand the distinction. He sat down next to Grace, folding his overcoat over the arm of the chair.

"Uncle Jack?" Jason, Mathew's seven year old son tugged on 47's suit jacket.

"Yes?" he asked, turning his attention to the boy.

"Are you sick?" he asked worriedly.

"No," 47 said, puzzled.

"Then why don't you have any hair?" Jason demanded.

"Because I shaved it off," 47 told him.

"Why did you do that?" Jason said, sounding as though it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of.

"Because I'm used to it. The people who took me shaved my head every day when I was growing up," 47 explained.

"Sorry about that," Kristine apologized.

"I've got children of my own," 47 told her. "It's not the first time I've had to answer these questions." He had turned his head to talk to her and that had revealed his tattoo to the small child.

"What's that?" Jason asked, and touched the tattoo.

"It's a barcode tattoo," 47 answered patiently.

"Does it come off like mine?" Jason showed 47 the temporary tattoo of Superman on the back of his hand.

"No, it's a real tattoo. The Organization put it on all of the little boys they stole," 47 explained.

"Why did they do that?" Jason asked.

"Because they were very mean," 47 said. That was probably the best way to explain it for the six year old. He really was too young for an explanation of psychological intimidation and breaking.

"Why'd they steal you?" April wanted to know.

"Because they wanted me to make them a lot of money," 47 told her.

"But you were a baby. Babies can't do anything," Alison, the ten year old protested quietly, but with the air of someone who had spent a lot of time around babies. The rules of the hospital were very clear and arguing was not allowed.

"When you start to learn something very early, and you don't learn anything else, then you get to be very, very good at that one thing," 47 said. "What they taught me to do easily made them several million dollars a year, just from my contracts, and I wasn't the only baby stolen. There were over 800 boys at the training center that the FBI just shut down." He had no idea what the adults in the family had told them about him, but he was no more about to lie to them than he would his own children. As he did with them, he would simply edit the things that he told them to what they could understand.

From the shocked looks on the adult's faces, he didn't think that they had grasped the full extent of what it meant for the Organization to be such a major player in the industry. Agents were only useful for so long and being human, they did make mistakes. Those usually resulted in the death of the agent and thus the agent needed to be replaced. Of course there were also the few times that there was a hit taken out on an agent as well.

The hit on him had cost the Organization over twenty agents before he had made certain that there was no one left alive willing to pay the price on his head, which of course had ended the contract. That was almost an entire graduating class of the training center. It had been more than worth it for 47. He had never regretted the three month delay it had taken him, besides it had given the realtors time to finish up their work as well. Nika, and now his family meant everything to him. That was why he had ordered the protection detail and someone to investigate his mother and sister's accident. The timing was far too close to the discovery that they were his family to be a coincidence for his peace of mind. He was going to have to be on alert.


	9. Chapter 9

Napa Valley

Nika walked into her favorite bookstore, and looked around for Karen who ran the place. If there was anyone who would be able to get her a copy of 47's sister's books, it would be her.

"Nika!" Karen called from behind her. "No kids in tow today?" she asked with a grin. Nika Cooper was rarely alone. Between her husband, multiple children, and her security guards, (courtesy of her security consultant husband - the man was seriously paranoid in Karen's opinion, but also a genuinely nice guy) Nika usually led quite a trail of people behind her. She often reminded Karen of a mother duck with ducklings.

"Not today Karen," Nika said seriously. She knew that she amused the childless by choice woman, and usually she was amused in turn, but this was not the time for that. "I have a serious situation on my hands." Karen whisked Nika over to a table and chairs set that were there for customers use and hurried over to her office.

She returned with a set of hot chocolate mugs and cookies. Nika knew that Karen had a negative reaction to coffee, a quirk that dated back to being forced to sit next to the desk of a grade school teacher that she disliked, but loved hot chocolate and indulged herself, friends and her favorite customers at every reasonable opportunity. "Tell me," she demanded as she handed Nika a mug.

"The FBI has cold case files of kidnappings going back many years," Nika began, letting a nervous expression come over her face. 47 wasn't the only one who knew how to disguise what they were really feeling. She'd had plenty of practice when she was a slave. "Someone in that department had the idea to look up the birth certificates of these people. As I understand it, some of the hospitals print the newborn babies' hands as well as their feet. The birth certificates that had hand prints were run through the computer program that does fingerprint identification for all sorts of things – criminals, hospital workers, teachers," here she sighed, "and security contractors. It turns out that Jack was kidnapped when he was a week old."

"OH MY! You're not serious?" Karen gasped, knowing that Nika was serious but not knowing what else to say.

Nika nodded. "Yes, he was. He's in New York right now, meeting with his birth family. Personally I'm just hoping that this one is better than the ones who ended up with him. Abusive doesn't begin to cover it," she said.

The look on her face said it all, and it merely confirmed for Karen the rumors that had gone around for years about Jack Cooper. The man was a terrific husband and father, but he was also so over protective it was funny. Why even the three year old was enrolled in martial arts classes and had his own bodyguard! "I'm sure they can't be worse," she tried to reassure Nika.

"Thank you," Nika said, and silently agreed. 47's new family couldn't be worse than the Organization that had raised him. "One of his birth sisters is an author by the name of Grace Wilkins. I was wondering if you had any of her books?"

Karen knew not only exactly who Nika was talking about; she also knew why Nika was hunting the books down. It was the closest she could get to checking these people out before she met them. "I have them all in stock. She writes murder mysteries, and her hook is that her main character is a hitman who owns a revenge business. The series is called Revenge for Hire, and the murder is always only part of the revenge. The person who ends up being blamed and arrested for the murder is usually someone who has done something even worse than the murder victim. Often it's the only way that person can be brought even close to justice too."

"Well, that's different," was all that Nika could think of to say. "I'll take a copy of the entire series."

ICU

Automatically 47 scanned the room as he entered; noticing all of the medical equipment, the way the glass walls were orientated, the placement of the curtains, and most of all, the frail woman in the bed. This woman was his mother. The fact was still something he was having a difficult time with. He'd been told that he was an orphan, rejected - a throwaway and disposable, for so long that to have it proven false was overwhelming. "Mom, Steven's here," Grace said quietly as she took Samantha's hand.

As Samantha's eyes searched around, 47 stepped forward so that she could see him. She was on a breathing tube so she could not say anything, but the way her entire being seemed to come alive when she caught sight of him made him glad that it was him she was seeing, instead of the persona that he used when he wanted people to like him. He had no wish to manipulate his mother that way. She reached for him and he caught her hand, being careful of her IV. "I'm told that you've been looking for me since the Organization took me. Thank you for that," he told her sincerely.

She released his hand and reached for his face. 47 firmly held back his usual revulsion at being touched by a stranger and leaned into her hand. This was his mother, most likely the last person who had touched him with any sort of kindness before he had met Nika. He would not let his reunion with her be blemished by the responses the Organization had created in him. A tear trickled down her cheek and 47 gently wiped it away. "You need to get better so that we can have a proper conversation," he told her. "Would you like me to tell you about your six new grandchildren?"

Samantha nodded as much as she was able and he began to tell her about his family. He had spotted a board with pictures and messages on it when he came in. It was placed where his mother could see it, so he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the packet of pictures. He'd prepared for the possibility that his family would want to see pictures of his wife and children before he'd left his hotel room the second time that morning.

"Nadine is my oldest child. She's nine years old and desperately wants to be ten so that she can join one of our league's paintball teams. It's her current obsession. She informs me that soft foam is for babies and that it is hard to sneak around the field properly with such bulky weapons. I told her that the rules say that she can't play paintball until she is ten and that I won't change the rules just for her. She loathes the color pink and hates her art class. She loves all shades of green and anything that can get her outside. Her teacher Mrs. Thompson says that she is a full blown tomboy.

"Alexander is seven years old. He's as scholarly as Nadine refuses to be. He loves to torment his sisters and if his mother hadn't forbid him using his soft foam weapons in the house he'd be using them as targets every minute of the day. He loves frogs, turtles, and snakes and his room is filled with glass cages full of them. When you enter his room you must be careful to make certain that all of his pets are inside their cages as some of them are rather poisonous. He believes that they are more interesting than those creatures which are not poisonous.

"Christy and Emily are identical twins. They're five years old. They're very excited about kindergarten but don't like their school uniforms or the fact that they don't have the same teacher. They love to play dress up with their mother. They're both full of questions and I never know what they're going to ask next, although they do understand that there are some topics that should never be discussed outside of the family. They enjoy pairing up with each other against Alexander. They usually do a good job of making him pay for his pranks.

"Demyan is three and into everything. He is constantly running after his older siblings and trying to do whatever they are. It doesn't seem to matter to him if he is able to accomplish whatever it is they are doing, he's stubborn and refuses to give up trying. My wife Nika informs me that he is more my child than any of the others. Apparently I'm the most stubborn person on the face of the planet. Personally I'm not sure if that is an insult or not. My stubbornness has helped me more often than not over the years."

"Eric is eighteen months. He runs instead of walks and has his own nanny to keep up with him." The fact that his 'nanny' was a man and was in reality his bodyguard, wasn't the sort of thing that she needed to know right now. "Nika is already pregnant again. Sometimes I think she's making up for the family we both lost." 47 watched as his mother's eyes fluttered closed. Just listening had worn her out, but she looked so pleased, even in her sleep, that 47 was glad he had taken the time to tell her about his children.

New York City Police Impound Yard

Mendoza was not a happy camper. Mr. Townsend had rounded up a dozen men from different shifts and sent them all to New York City in the middle of winter. Most of them had ended up with the easy duty of guarding the boss's mother and sister while they were in the hospital. He was the one who had to go out into the hell that was a New York winter, find the car or cars that were involved in the accident that put the ladies in the hospital in the first place, and then figure out if there was anything that stank about said accident – not such an easy or even dry assignment as the rest of the men had gotten. He hated snow.

Mendoza had worked for Mr. Cooper for nine years now. He knew what the man did for a living, but he had no problem with it. Somebody had to do the dirty work for the CIA, and he had seen a company man that he recognized from his time in the Special Forces offer a contract to the boss. He was more than happy to be the bodyguard for the boss's oldest girl. Nadine Cooper was a little spitfire and eagerly learned everything they tried to teach her. She also wasn't scared of him. For a man who regularly scared other men off with just his looks, that was something to cherish.

The first place that he had gone was the police impound yard. Sure enough, the car that he had been given a description and license number for was there. After persuading the cops there to let him have a look, (the PI license that Townsend had made sure all of his men had was very useful at times like this) and promising not to touch, one of the CSI gals who was working on the car let him follow along. "So, you're a private investigator huh?" she asked.

"Yeah, but most of the time I do security work. The big boss is rich and can afford the best, so we all get PI licenses so we can do this sort of checking. There's no way I could do your guys' job. I'll leave that to the professionals," Mendoza answered easily.

He must have answered the question right because she warmed up to him immediately. "So what's your interest in this car?" she said, beginning to flirt without taking her eyes off of the job she was working on.

Mendoza couldn't quite figure out why she was lifting off pieces of what looked like mud to him off of the underside of the car, but figured that she knew what she was doing. "The big boss was just told by the FBI that he was kidnapped when he was a week old. They put him in contact with his birth family, and this car belongs to his mom and dad. Mom and little sis were in the car when the pileup happened. The timing is a little too close for comfort, so he wants to see if anything was tampered with just in case."

"What do you think?" she asked, suddenly looking straight at him and very seriously.

"I think the timing stinks, and the big boss sometimes does company work," Mendoza said, putting a little emphasis on company so she would know exactly what sort of company he was talking about. "You might want to do a thorough check up on this car and send the report over to the FBI or maybe Interpol. I heard they had an interest in the boss's kidnapping."

"There are so many accidents in this city at this time of year," she said, turning back to her work. "You'd think that a little, itty bitty bit of tampering wouldn't be noticed. I gotta tell you though, my boss? He's the best at sniffing out suspicious circs, and he tagged this one right off the bat. I don't even know how he ended up knowing about this one. Of course, it would be just his luck to have watched the damned accident on his way in to work. You wouldn't believe the shit that happens to that man." She smirked and pointed her little tool, (Mendoza had no idea what it was called, it was just small, pointy and made of metal) at the brake line. Sure enough, the clamp that held the connection in place was loose.

Mendoza nodded. "Just loose enough to have the brakes loose effectiveness, but there's not enough there that anyone not looking for trouble would find it," he said sourly. "Your boss is good. Good thing we've already set up guards at the hospital."

"Yeah he is," she said. "Of course, that means that this wasn't done by anyone who is good enough to work for the CIA or any of their counterparts. They'd have taken the entire clamp off and put a new one on. Result is the same, but the tool marks would show tightening, not loosening so if any CSIs went looking for problems would have simply thought that the clamping wasn't done properly in the first place. So, what sort of security do you do when you aren't looking into car accidents?"

"I'm bodyguard to the boss's oldest and I'm in charge of all of the kids' bodyguards. I gotta tell you, the boss and his lady – they're great, treat all of us just like we're family, none of that you're a servant so your part of the furniture crap I see a lot of guys in my line of work put up with. They don't deserve to have this happen to them," he growled lightly. He tried not to growl around pretty women. He didn't want to scare them off because of it. His face did enough of that for him.

"Not the women in the wreck?" she asked him curiously.

"I don't know them yet," he replied seriously. "I doubt they did anything to deserve this either, but I'll hold my judgment until I meet up with them. For all I know they could be the sweetest ladies to ever walk the earth, but there's just as much chance that they're the biggest bitches on the face of the planet. You wouldn't believe how many soccer moms fall into the second category instead of the first. Lots of the second sort try to gossip up trouble for the family. None of them are brave enough to face off against the boss though."

"You'd be surprised at how many soccer moms I end up arresting for trying shit like this," she shook her head. "Don't count them out of the running just yet. What do they have against your boss anyway?"

"It's not him, it's his wife," Mendoza said. This was where he had to be careful. Sharing information with the NYPD was part and parcel of getting information from them, but too much information was as bad as too little. "She's gorgeous, sexy, wealthy, and doesn't look like the mother of as many kids as she's had. They call her names like brood mare and the like." She burst out laughing at that one. "Plus he's a hell of a lot better looking than me, good enough to turn all of their heads anyway, but nothing turns his head except his wife. He really loves her."

"She's lucky. A man like that is hard to find," the CSI said wistfully. "Although I'm not so sure that you're not turning a head or two yourself." The flirting was back on and Mendoza was not so foolish enough to miss grabbing the opportunity that he rarely had. Not many women were interested in a man who looked like ten miles of rough road and like he'd be more at home on death row than at a society function.


	10. Chapter 10

ICU

"Well, it looks like having you here is a good thing," the current nurse, her name tag said Brenda, watching over both of the Wilkins women said quietly to 47 as she met him and Grace as they came out of Samantha's room. Normally she wouldn't do that, but she wanted to have a word with the new son that had shown up and it wasn't something that her patient needed to hear.

Unlike some people, she always assumed that the patient could hear what was going on around them, even if they couldn't respond. She'd been proven right too many times for her to ignore it. "The bodyguards you brought in aren't being a pain and Mrs. Wilkins seems to be improving. If she keeps this up we'll be weaning her off of the ventilator and moving her to the progressive care unit within the next 12 to 24 hours."

"I'm glad that they're not getting in your way," 47 told her in the same quiet voice that she had used. "I don't want to disrupt any of your work. It's just that the timing of their accident is very suspicious."

"Not at all," Brenda assured him. "We've had enough high profile patients over the years here to be well versed in what is needful in the way of increased security. Your men have been very good at keeping themselves at the entrances to the unit and making sure that only those that are supposed to be here are allowed in."

"What about Kelly?" Grace asked. "How is she doing?"

"She's being moved later today to the progressive care unit," Brenda told her. "She's going to need long term care until her pelvic, ribs and collar bones heal, but she's doing very well. I need to go and check your mother now." With that, she slipped into the patient's room.

47 and Grace moved back to the waiting room, their time with Samantha was over with and their turns to sit with Kelly wouldn't take place until later that afternoon. Grace would go in with Mathew to see her and 47 would go in with Greg. At the moment Mathew and his wife were sitting in with Samantha and Greg and David were in with Kelly. 47 and Grace would look after the children in the meantime.

After they had both sat down, Grace pulled out a small netbook and 47 settled in to wait. There was a lot of waiting in his profession and he was very good at it; at least he was when there was a goal to be achieved. Killing time, (and yes he'd heard every pun Nika could come up with on that one), was never easy for him. April crawled up onto his lap. "Aunt Grace needs to work on her story," she informed him seriously. "Do you know any stories?"

"Like bedtime stories?" 47 asked. "I know several of those."

"Could you tell me one?" April asked. "The boys are watching the stupid cartoons, not the good ones and Alison has her book. I'm bored."

47 could see that Grace was watching them out of the corner of his eye, no doubt waiting to see what he would do. "Well, I could tell you Emily's favorite story. She likes one that has a wizard, a dragon, two very bad kings and two princesses in hiding. Would you like to hear that one?"

April nodded her head vigorously. She'd never heard of that story before. "Very well then. Now, once a very long time ago, there were two kingdoms with very, very bad kings. They were very mean to their subjects, making them work all day long and only giving them a little food to eat. They never got time to play and they had to do everything the kings told them to do, like make a war with the other kingdom even though they didn't want to go to war at all."

By now he had all of the children's attention as well as Grace's. He was pretty sure that his sister would figure out the story behind the story, but he had told the truth. It was Emily's favorite. It wasn't his fault that he'd never even heard of bedtime stories until after he was married.

"Now close to these kingdoms was a tall tower where a wizard lived alone with his pet dragon. Dragons are usually very, very big but this dragon wasn't. That was why he lived with the wizard. Other dragons would pick on him because he was small for a dragon, but the wizard never did. The two friends liked to stay in their tower, the wizard making lots of spells and potions and the dragon dreaming of cows and sheep to eat, but never chickens because they're small, they make terrible noises and they smell very, very bad. They didn't like to be interrupted.

"Soon the two terrible kings were making things so bad for the people that they decided they'd had enough. They knew that the kingdoms had two princesses that were hiding far away from the bad kings. Each kingdom's princess lived with the other kingdom's princess in a little cottage in the deep, dark woods not far from the wizard's tower. The people from each kingdom sent a messenger to their princess asking them what they should do about the terrible king that they had.

"The princesses both got their messages the same day. So they sat together and tried to figure out a plan that would help. First they decided that they had to be good princesses and give the bad kings a chance to be good kings. So the messengers were sent to the kings with a message that asked them to change and be good kings who would take care of their people instead of making wars.

"The terrible kings were very angry that anyone had dared to tell them what to do, and they killed the messengers and hung their bodies outside the castles where everyone could see. The people were very, very frightened by this. So they went back to their princesses and told them what had happened.

"The princesses were very worried. They knew that the bad kings would never stop being bad now. So they decided that there was only one thing that they could do for their people. They went to the wizard's tower to ask him to stop the bad and terrible kings.

"The wizard did not like to be interrupted when he was making his spells and potions. The dragon did not like to be interrupted when he was dreaming of his delicious food. They were both very grumpy and rude to the princesses, but the princesses were very brave and did not let that stop them. They explained all about the terrible kings and asked him to stop them.

"The wizard said 'Fine, but if I do you two have to become the new queens and never come bother me again!' The princesses really did not want to become queens because that meant that they would have to move from their little cottage into the castles far away from each other. They were best friends and did not want to leave each other, but they were princesses and knew that the people needed their help, so they agreed. They left the wizard's tower and went back home, promising each other that they would be friends forever.

"The wizard grumbled to the dragon, who just yawned and went back to sleep. Then he went to his magic mirror and began to spy on the bad kings. He saw what they did to the people that they were supposed to protect and was very unhappy about what he saw. Things were much worse than what the two princesses had told him. These two kings were doing very, very bad things to their people, not just making war with each other and using their people to do it.

"The wizard thought and thought, but could not come up with a way to turn these two kings into good kings. There wasn't even the smallest bit of good in their hearts for him to work with. So he did the only thing he could think of. He woke up his dragon, got on the dragon's back and flew down to one kingdom where that king liked to go hunting. Instead of hunting, the king got hunted as the dragon swooped down from the air above and grabbed him right off of his horse.

"The dragon and wizard brought the terrible king back to their tower and made him drink two potions. The first potion took away his voice, because he squeaked and made the dragon's ears hurt. Then they took the terrible king and flew down into the other kingdom and dropped him, right into the courtyard of the other king's castle. The castle guards were overjoyed, because they were big bullies and loved to make people cry.

"So they took the bad king to their king, kicking him and punching him and laughing every time he cried because they were so mean. Their king was very happy that he had his enemy in his castle, so he took him down to the dungeon where all of his guards could see their enemy king and take turns being mean. When the wizard saw in his magic mirror that all of the bad guards and both bad kings were in the dungeon he made the second potion blow them all up. It made a terrible mess, but all of the bad people were dead so that they couldn't be terrible kings and guards anymore.

"The princesses went to the castles, cleaned up all of the messes that the bad kings had left, and made certain that neither kingdom ever went to war again. They gave all of their people lots of food to eat and made them take holidays and vacations so that they could have lots of play time. The wizard went back to making his potions and spells. The dragon went back to dreaming of cows and sheep but never, ever chickens because they are small, they make terrible noises, and they smell very, very bad."

April started giggling and couldn't stop. 47 was used to that reaction. It happened to Emily every time he told that story. He glanced at the rest of the kids. They were staring bug eyed at him. Grace, he knew, had been staring throughout the entire story, but now her attention was taken up with the man standing at the entrance to the waiting room. 47 wasn't concerned, although it was obvious that the man unnerved her. "Mendoza?" he said, acknowledging the man and asking for his report at the same time.

Mendoza came over, rubbing his hands to warm them. "It was like you thought boss. Slick job, but not up to your standards. Emily's story?" Mendoza asked, nodding at the giggling April. He didn't want to say anything too specific in front of the kids.

47 nodded. "Move them all to the vineyard and make sure that there are no questions asked. I don't want the client or the agents alerted. The daughter needs long term care, so be careful. Make sure that they have everything they need and alert Inspector Whittaker. Tell Mrs. Cooper they're coming so she'll be prepared."

"You got it boss," Mendoza said. He was simply relieved that he wouldn't have to go back out into the weather.

"And Mendoza," 47 said, putting April down. "Thank you. I know that you hate snow."

Mendoza smiled. This was the reason that he liked his boss so much. He actually cared about his people. "No problem boss. I actually got a date out of it." He left the waiting room and headed down to the cafeteria. He could make all of his calls from there and he also knew that was where the rest of the bodyguards would be when they were off duty. He could get an update from them.


	11. Chapter 11

Everything went well with Kelly's transfer, and while it had not been easy for her, she'd been excited to meet her oldest brother. She'd even managed to claim 47's hand for the transfer, claiming that she needed something to hold on to and he was going to be it. Now that he had met all of his siblings, 47 was coming to have a greater appreciation for where his inherent stubbornness had come from.

That stubbornness had kept him alive and nearly at the top of his group during his training, in spite of the fact that he had been on the small side for his age. Although he had grown into his height after he had left the training center, (he was easily as tall as either of his brothers now) he had his mother's more slender build. It had meant that he had been forced to push himself into being able to do things that were far more difficult than he should have been able to accomplish. Now there wasn't a single inch of his body that wasn't sculpted and honed into the most efficient tool in his arsenal.

"I am so glad that I finally have a quiet brother," Kelly said. 47 was leaning against one wall of her new room, while Greg was sitting in the visitor's chair next to her bed. "You wouldn't believe how loud and wild Mathew and Greg can get."

47 shrugged. "Loud gets you noticed and that's not exactly a good thing in my profession," he pointed out. In fact, even now he had put himself in a place where he would be easily overlooked by anyone coming into the room.

"Makes sense," she said, ignoring Greg's protests that he wasn't that loud. "So, what's your favorite way to kill somebody?"

"Kelly!" Greg protested. "You don't ask questions like that!"

"This coming from the king of impudence," Kelly retorted. "I'm drugged to the gills. I've got an excuse," she added smugly.

47 had the feeling that this new family of his was always going to amuse him, as long as he wasn't the focus of their _impudence_. "Actually my preference is for subtlety rather than one specific method. Whatever gets the job done with the least amount of fuss is usually the best, but there are also the client's wishes to be taken into consideration."

"Like wah, um what?" Kelly asked.

47 could tell that she was beginning to slip under. She would be asleep soon, and there was no telling if she would even remember this conversation. "I've been asked to make things look like accidents, natural causes, robbery, revenge, competition from others in the same business," he told her matter of factly. "I've even had a contract for an assisted suicide."

"Wow," Kelly said and yawned. By the time she finished she was asleep.

"Can you tell me about that one?" Greg asked. "I'm curious, but if you don't want to talk about it you don't have to."

47 frowned slightly at the memory. Now that he was a father, looking back at that contract disturbed him. "It was a thirteen year old girl. She had a very excruciating terminal illness. I don't know where she got the money to pay me, but I do know that it was done over the internet and I have some suspicions that she hacked one her government's accounts. Her family certainly wasn't wealthy enough to afford my fees.

"I had taken the contract thinking that she was much older. I knew about the illness but I hadn't been aware that it was terminal. She was at home rather than a hospital, so it was more than easy to simply walk into her room. She was sitting up in her bed, working on her computer when I walked in. She actually told me to wait a moment because she was busy getting the last part of her funeral paid for.

"She was just this tiny little thing, so very frail, but strong too. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want her dead, much less why she wanted to die so badly that she'd actually hired someone to kill her. She told me when she'd finished that she hadn't expected her uncle's contacts to send someone so cute." Greg tried to stifle a laugh, but 47 just shrugged at him.

"I was all of twenty or so at the time, so I suppose she liked what she saw. Anyway, I asked her what was so bad about her life that she'd taken out a contract on herself. She smiled at me and told me that she was tired, it was time and she was ready but her family, especially her mother, wasn't. They were about to bankrupt themselves over trying to save her and she wasn't going to let them do that. She also told me not to worry about my fee, that she'd already taken care of it and patted her computer proudly.

"Then she explained to me about her condition and what she had to look forward to while her family struggled to save her. It was fairly horrific." That was all 47 would say on that matter. Greg really didn't need the details. He wished that she hadn't been quite so graphic, but he knew that she thought she'd needed to persuade him to finish the job. She hadn't, he'd just wanted to understand what had driven her into hiring him. For all that he hadn't been all that familiar with human emotions, even he knew that people who were suicidal were rarely happy, and she was a very happy young girl from he had seen. From the moment he'd accepted the contract she was dead, all that had been in question was how he was going to do it.

"The only thing that she asked for was a kiss before I killed her. She never knew it was my first one as well." He remembered sitting there next to her on the bed, and the sweet smile that she'd given him afterwards. It had stayed on her face as she watched him slip a needle into her IV. She'd died seconds later. It was easiest hit he'd ever done, and he was glad that he'd chosen the least painful method of the options that were available to him.

"The client gets what she wants, huh?" Greg asked sympathetically.

"Unless there is a good reason not to, and then I usually pass on the contract rather than trying to persuade them otherwise. These types of contracts are extremely expensive and the clients should get what they want at those prices, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept a contract either."

"So, out of sheer curiosity, how much does a contract cost?" Greg asked.

"A hundred thousand per contracted kill is my usual fee, although there are times when it does go higher," 47 told him.

"One of those would set you up for a year," Greg said, flabbergasted.

47 shook his head. The very idea of only working once a year horrified him. "I'd go crazy if I only worked once a year. I usually take a contract once or twice a month, perhaps three or four if Nika's pregnant."

Grace slipped into the room just then, and 47 was grateful. He could tell that Greg wanted to ask about why he took more contracts when Nika was pregnant, and that was one discussion that he really didn't want to have right now. "Greg, Candy's down in the waiting room and they're starting to wean Mom off of the ventilator."

"Thanks, tell Kelly where I am and about Mom," Greg said as he hurried out the door.

Grace sat down in the newly vacated chair. She smiled as she spotted 47. "They don't let her in because she's not family and she's been working extra hours to make up for the time Greg spends here." The two eldest siblings settled in, watching over their sleeping sister.

It was only fifteen minutes later when someone came into the room with a cart. Grace looked up, but seeing the scrubs and other accoutrements of the medical profession, didn't bother to watch as the man began taking Kelly's vitals. 47 wasn't so lax. He carefully studied the man, noting things in his body language that tweaked his instincts. It wasn't until the man glanced to the side, picking up a syringe from the cart that 47 realized why.

Instantly 47 reached into a pocket, brought out one of his garrotes, and whipped one end around the man's neck. Catching the flying handle, he brought the fiberwire tight against the man's throat and kicked him in the back of the knee. Within seconds the man was on his knees, on the floor, trying desperately to claw himself free of the wire cutting off his breathing. Grace sat stunned as 47 loosened the wire just enough to allow the man to talk. "Hello Jason," he said calmly. "How much is the contract?"

"I don't know…" Jason gasped.

"Jason, don't lie to me," 47 chided as he tightened up the garrote. "As many times as we've competed on the same contracts, you'd think that you'd know better than that." He waited for a moment before letting the man breathe again.

"47? Oh hell," Jason cursed as he recognized the emotionless voice. "Shit, the contracts are half a million each, the entire family. You want it, you take it. I'm not about to get in it with you again."

"What were you planning on using?" 47 asked, as though he had all the time in the world to get his answer and he was simply curious.

"Morphine OD, kid wouldn't feel a thing. She's already on a lot of the strong pain killers," Jason said. "I hate hurting kids. You know that."

"Thank you for that," 47 said as he released the garrote. Jason didn't notice, being simply to glad to get some air down his throat, that 47 was reaching for his head. A quick snap and Jason was dead. "It earned you a quick death."

Grace was still in shock. "Half a million each? For the whole family?"

"You're right, that is a bit excessive," 47 said thoughtfully. He reached over and picked up his garrote. "Even being my family shouldn't buy you that much attention."

"What?" Grace gasped out.

"Grace," 47 said coldly. He'd seen this sort of shock before, usually just before someone began pleading for their lives. He knew that she would come out of it soon enough. "There is nothing in your background, or in the rest of the family's background that would have someone take out a contract on you, much less the entire family. Very few people will take out a contract on a child, much less seven of them. I am the only reason that anyone who had that sort of money would care about you, but it still doesn't make sense that someone would pay five times my usual fee just to get rid of someone I don't even know." Almost out of habit 47 reached into his pocket for his gloves, pulled them on and pulled the body out of sight of the door. A quick wipe down of his garrote before it was placed back in his pocket, and he was satisfied that things were cleaned up enough as he had no intention of hiding what he'd done.

"You knew that we were in danger," Grace said. It wasn't an accusation, but a realization. This cold, and seemingly indifferent attitude, this was what Diana had warned her about. This was 47 focused on what he did best.

"The timing of the accident was far too coincidental," 47 said as he pulled out his phone. "Mendoza found signs that Dad's car had been tampered with." He dialed a number that he really had no business knowing, but he hadn't been able to resist getting. "Mike, it's not a fucking crap shoot."

MisPer, FBI Building


	12. Chapter 12

MisPer, FBI Building

Mike Whittaker had put his cell phone on speaker as his hands were busy with yet another file, so everyone in his office heard 47's short message. "Oh hell," he said. "I'm on my way. Where are you?" He motioned to the other officers in his office to follow him as he grabbed up his coat. The last thing he wanted was for someone who didn't know the situation to barge in and muck things up.

"At the hospital, the progressive care unit," 47 said, laying a sheet over the body. He didn't want to expose his baby sister to that in her condition, although he had a feeling that she was one of the more morbid types who'd find it 'cool' rather than something to yell about considering the question she'd asked him. "Jason Bryer tried to OD Kelly."

"Oh shit," Mike breathed. He closed his eyes and thumped his head on the back of the elevator that he'd just entered. He really hadn't wanted to think about a confrontation between any assassin and 47 and now he was going to have to clean up the aftermath. Jenkins was already pulling up what information he could on Bryer on his cell.

Mike glanced at it, although it only showed what he already knew about the man – British Intelligence assassin who occasionally took on a side assignment, usually as a favor for someone. That world ran on favors. "Alright, don't worry about cleaning up the scene. You're covered under self-defense, especially as Kelly is completely helpless right now. I'll see you in a few minutes."

47 nodded, although he knew that Mike couldn't see him. "When you get here, do you think you might give my man Mendoza a little help with the head nurse for this department? She's being very obstructive about letting my people know who is authorized to be here, much less allowing them to do their jobs guarding Kelly."

"Not a problem," Mike said and hung up. He charged out of the elevator and out of the building, leading the three others to where his car was parked. Jenkins climbed in the driver's seat and the two FBI agents climbed in the back. Mike ended up in the passenger seat by default.

"What did he mean when he said it wasn't a fucking crap shoot?" Jenkins asked.

"47 once asked me 'How does a good man decide when to kill?'" Mike sighed. That night was coming back to haunt him and he could only hope that Jenkins would understand why he had gone along with 47's idea. "They've been trained their entire lives to kill when ordered, but not how to tell when a man deserves to die or when it is acceptable to society to kill him. I told him in all honesty that unless someone is trying to do me or my family harm – it's a crap shoot. The one thing that chasing the Organization all these years has taught me is that complete honesty is the only way to go. They don't understand candy coating things, and lying to them in any way is considered a betrayal."

There were nods of understanding from all around. Jenkins frowned as he remembered something. "That's the first time I've heard one of them swear though."

"The man just saved his baby sister from being poisoned. I think he's got a reason to be pissed off," Agent Waters pointed out from the back seat.

"Yes, but it also means that we need to be very careful when dealing with him," Mike told them. "Not one of them swears because it's vulgar and unprofessional. His blood pressure is probably through the roof and he's hanging onto his composure by the skin of his teeth, no matter how calm he sounds or looks. The last thing we want to do is push him over that edge. No one gets in his face about anything, is that understood?" he ordered.

The other men nodded. "Good, the last thing we need is for a retired hitman to become an active hitman, especially this one." He caught the suspicious glance that Jenkins threw at him, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. If Jenkins figured it out, he figured it out. Actually it was more like when because Jenkins was not at all stupid and he'd been at Mike's side for the entire three years that he'd chased 47. All he could do was hope that their partnership would hold.

As the four officers entered the Progressive Care Center, Mike could see what 47 meant by an obstinate nurse giving Mendoza a hard time. He'd met the man just hours earlier when Mendoza had personally delivered the information that Samantha and Kelly Wilkins' accident had been no accident. Then he'd been calm and collected, giving Mike a clear and concise report on his findings.

Now the large Hispanic man looked like he was two seconds from ripping his hair out. The much smaller nurse standing between him and the nurse's station was dismissing him out of hand, looking at him like he was attempting to run a con on her and she wasn't buying it. If the situation wasn't life and death, then Mike would have been tempted to laugh at the picture the two made.

As it was, Mike marched over to her and shoved his ID at her. "Inspector Whittaker, Interpol. I've been informed of an attempted murder by a British citizen on an American minor in this hospital. It was reported that the British citizen lost his life in the process of making the attempt. It is also my understanding," here he leaned forward into the astonished nurse's face, "that you have refused to allow this minor the security that was required to prevent this second attempt on her life. You're lucky I don't arrest you on the spot. Now give Mr. Mendoza and the rest of his security team the information they require and assign a nurse or orderly who is cleared to be on this floor to take me and a gurney to Miss Kelly Wilkins' room. The gurney will be needed to remove the body."

One of the two young women at the nurse's station picked up a phone and hurriedly muttered something that Mike couldn't make out. The other one got up and hurriedly told him to follow her. Mendoza threw him a grateful glance as Mike and his men followed the nurse down the hall. They were still in sight of the nurse's station when she stopped and opened a door, so Mike knew that however 47 had killed Bryer, it had been done very quietly.

The first thing that Mike noticed when he entered the room was the abandoned cart with the scattered items on the top, including a filled syringe with a large dose of some type of liquid. He had to look completely around the room before he spotted 47 or the sheet draped body beside him. He nodded at 47, but turned his attention to the woman sitting beside the sleeping teen in the hospital bed, her older sister Grace.

"Did Kelly see anything?" he asked quietly. Grace shook her head. The woman looked remarkably composed for just having witnessed the attempted murder of her baby sister and the death of her sister's attacker. 'Well, I suppose calling Bryer an attacker is a bit exaggerated. I doubt the man got close enough to actually touch the girl before 47 killed him,' Mike thought. "Grace will you go with these FBI agents so they can take your statement?"

Although he was polite enough to phrase it as a question, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was an order for both Grace and the agents. Neither FBI agent really minded Whittaker taking charge. They understood that he'd been trying to bring the Organization down for over a decade, and respected him for the work he'd already put into the investigation. As they left the room, followed by the nurse, Mike knelt down and pulled the sheet back, making certain to block any view Kelly might have if she were to wake up.

"It's Bryer all right," Mike told Jenkins.

"Damn," Jenkins said halfheartedly. "And here I'd hoped that you were wrong," he told 47. It was the wrong thing to say of course, but it was out before Mike could stop him.

47's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't make those kinds of mistakes," he said coldly. "And how's your arm by the way?" Jenkins blanched as he finally realized just who 47 was.

Mike stood up quickly. "He didn't mean it like that," he said to 47. "It's just that this proves that the Organization is cleaning up after itself. Two of the trainers we have in custody have died in the last week. There's no way to prove that neither died of natural causes, but it's too much of a coincidence for me. A known assassin attempting to inject an obvious overdose of morphine into someone, whose only connection to that sort is to the Organization as a loose end on the other hand, can't be anything but premeditated murder."

"I'd been hoping that it was simply a case of someone getting a little payback," Jenkins offered. Mike breathed a silent sigh of relief as Jenks decided to back his play.

"That's possible," 47 conceded. "There are a few that I wouldn't mind seeing dead."

Mike turned quickly and shook his finger at 47. "Don't you dare! You're retired and you'll stay that way! And if you don't, don't you dare say anything that would make me put you back on my list of suspects!"

"Mike," 47 said, attempting to sound hurt although it was a bit difficult as he was also trying to not laugh. "I'd never take money to kill one of the trainers….I'd do it for free."

Even as Mike groaned into his hand, a giggle came from Kelly's bed. As Mike dropped his hand to turn around, he saw the slight smile on 47's face. "It's not funny," he told Kelly. "Especially since I know he means it." He didn't know how long she'd been awake, but it was obvious that she was up to speed on the conversation at least. He was also fairly sure that 47 was making jokes at his expense to cheer up his sister – at least he hoped so.

"I've got too much on my hands right now to worry about the trainers," 47 told Mike to calm him down. "On top of keeping my new family safe, my wife's pregnant."

"With number seven," Kelly offered.

Mike's jaw dropped and he offered. "Good God man, I don't know whether to congratulate you or offer my condolences. I had a hard enough time keeping up with my two girls."

"It's not bad right now, but then it's only a matter of remembering details," 47 told him.

"And you're good at that," Mike said.

"I had to be," 47 said bluntly. "The trainers retired those who couldn't pass the tests, including noticing details and remembering them."

Both Interpol agents repressed shudders as 47 reminded them of what they'd found at the training center – including the private cemetery full of far too small graves, some of which had been used multiple times. Mike knelt back down and tipped the corpse's head back. "Why'd you break his neck if you were already strangling him with a garrote?" Mike asked, getting back to work. The marks were unmistakable, as was the loose feeling of the head only being attached to the rest of the body by flesh and not bone. He wasn't surprised that 47 had a garrote on him. Not being armed in some way would probably give the poor man screaming night terrors.

"A little professional courtesy on both our parts," 47 admitted. "I got him to talk and he had intended to give my sister a painless death, so I gave him the same."

"Did he tell you how much the contracts are?" Jenkins asked as he began processing the crime scene.

47 nodded. "Half a million…each…for the entire family."

"Someone is getting a bit desperate if they're putting that much up. I don't suppose that you have any SEALS on that security team of yours, do you?" Mike asked 47.

47 nodded. "Most of them are retired special forces or former SWAT officers. The security teams house their families on site, as an extra precaution."

"And ninety percent of those families have no clue that their homes are more secure than the Queen Mother herself, I'd bet," Jenks said knowingly.

"They know that I'm paranoid about my family's safety and they appreciate that living there means that they're protected as well." 47 looked over at Kelly, who sure enough, was trying to see the body on the floor. "You are going as soon as the doctors will let you be moved. Mendoza is already working on getting everyone else moved as quietly as possible."

"What about Mom?" Kelly asked, worried because she knew that their mother was still in the ICU. "They won't let her be moved will they?"

"She's already being weaned off of the ventilator," 47 told her. "So she'll probably be moved at the same time you are."

They were interrupted by the return of the nurse, who led two men and a gurney into the room. Kelly got her look at the body when the two men placed it on the gurney and draped the sheet back over it. "Wow, subtle is right. He didn't even look dead," she said.

Mike shook his head at her enthusiasm. "Give me your statement," he told 47, "and then you get them out of here and take them somewhere safe. You know how to get a hold of me if something else happens and I'm certain that Diana will tell you everything else that you need to know."


	13. Chapter 13

47's hotel suite

The confrontation between 47 and his new family over his having them moved to California without consulting them turned out to be a lot less dramatic than he was anticipating thanks to Grace and Bryer. Bryer's attempt on Kelly's life and Grace's witnessing it made all the difference.

The rest of the family was in the waiting room, refusing to cooperate with Mendoza's request for them to leave with him, when Grace came in with the FBI agents. She told Mark, Mathew's oldest boy, to take his brothers and sisters down to the cafeteria and get them something to eat, handing him some money from her purse. Mendoza sent two of the bodyguards with the kids, but other than that didn't interfere.

Then Grace sat down and gave the agents her statement. To say that the rest of her family was shocked was an understatement. Her statement didn't take long, mostly because 47 had acted so quickly. When she was finished, any objections they had to being moved had been silenced. David exercised his fatherly rights and ordered all of the ladies to take the kids wherever it was that 47 had told his people to take them. He, Mathew and Greg would stay here with 47 until it was time to move their mother and Kelly.

Presented with this plan, and the fact that the women and children had already left, 47 had decided that it would be better to accept the plan than to try and fight it. It was obvious to him that all three Wilkins men had dug their heels in and he, more than anyone, knew exactly the levels of stubbornness it was possible to reach in their family. In the end he had offered a compromise of all three men moving into his hotel suite until the doctors allowed the ladies to be moved.

Moving his things into a new suite along with his father and brothers was simple enough, and it wasn't until he had finished placing all of his security measures that he realized they were staring at him. "That's a bomb, isn't it?" Greg finally asked, breaking the silence. He pointed at the device 47 had rigged to the door of the suite.

"Yes," 47 said simply, and moved to the table where he'd laid out his weaponry. "They know where we are. If someone is going to try something, it will most likely be here at the hotel, especially since Bryer was retired at the hospital." He sat down and began cleaning; going over his weapons carefully and making sure they were in perfect working order. Now was not the time for any of them to fail.

Greg and Mathew shrugged at each other and went to crash in their room. They were both exhausted. They'd been up the longest and really, as long as their brother knew what he was doing it was fine with them. They had no plans other than catching as much sleep as they could before returning to the hospital in the morning.

"Retired?" David asked as he sat down across from 47. He settled back into his chair and watched this stranger that he should have raised. He wanted to get to know his son, what sort of man he had grown into, what sort of person his wife was, what were his children like, everything that he had been denied by the people who had stolen his son away from him. There was no better time to get started than now.

"A common euphemism in the industry," 47 admitted. "No one leaves this business alive and going rogue, that is to work for yourself, is highly discouraged. The different groups that employ assassins tend to be extremely paranoid. They don't like the fact that we're human, and they like it even less when we're perfect. It isn't uncommon for a hitman to be retired after making a mistake, or rather what they view as a mistake. I never did find out why the Organization decided to retire me, not that I tried very hard to find out." 47 shrugged. He'd accepted a long time ago that he wouldn't leave this world quietly or without help.

"They tried to retire you?" David asked, surprised. "I was just told that you escaped them, not that they were looking to kill you."

47 smirked. "They sent six different agents to retire me during my last contract with them. Over the three months following that contract, they lost twenty more. I'm sure that whatever upper echelon runs the Organization is aware that I'm alive and well. They simply cut their losses when it became obvious that while I was still working, I wasn't going after their political contracts. That I had no intention of allowing myself to be retired just then and was more than willing to retire anyone sent after me simply cut into their profits. They just allowed everyone else to think that the fake death I had set up was real."

"You don't take political contracts?" David asked, a bit awed at how quickly and precisely 47 was dismantling, cleaning, and reassembling his weapons. It was an old habit for his son and it showed.

47 shook his head firmly. "Too much of a pain for the most part with so many different factions vying for power," he said. "The last one I worked I actually had to kill the client to get the job done. They're not worth the hassle."

"That seems to be a bit excessive to me," David said.

"I have never failed to complete a contract. It's one of the things that make me the best at what I do." 47 tested the edge of the knife he was holding.

"What does your wife think about your work?"

"Nika knows what I do. I don't lie to her," 47 reassured him. "She prefers that I take contracts where the target deserves to die." He hesitated a second, but decided that David at least, deserved to know how damaged he was. "I don't care who a target is or what they've done. That was burned out of me long before I left the training center. It's just that taking those contracts makes Nika smile, and I think I'd do anything to make that happen. She's beautiful when she smiles." And Nika was never happier than when she was nursing their children. 47 was looking forward to seeing that special smile again. It made the mood swings that he couldn't avoid bearable.

David flinched a bit, but knew that was to be expected. "As much as I wish you could say otherwise, I really didn't expect to hear it. You couldn't do your job if you cared about people."

"Actually I do care, but only about my family," 47 explained as he moved on to his ATM Hardballers. "I respect a few people outside of that, but for the most part," he shrugged.

"And we count as family? You've only known us for a day," David pointed out.

"But you accepted me," 47 told him. "And it wasn't for show either. Not one of you objected to my security precautions. Grace didn't chide me about the bedtime story I tell my daughters. Mom didn't give me dirty looks when I told her about my son's poisonous pets, not that they're all that poisonous but most people wouldn't care. Kelly was even enthusiastic about my retiring Bryer. You're sitting here with me now asking questions instead of getting upset about me checking my weapons."

"That girl," David shook his head. "I know she swears she's not a Goth, that she just likes the style of clothes, but I worry about her sometimes. You call Samantha, Mom?"

"Unlike adopted children, I have no conflict. I certainly didn't call any of my trainers Dad. I'd actually enjoy putting a bullet through their heads," 47 pointed out.

"You don't enjoy your job?" David asked, rather startled at the idea. He'd thought that 47 continued to take contracts because he enjoyed it, at least a little.

"It's just a job, one I was trained for my entire life. I could be using paint instead of bullets and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me. Finding the target, getting close enough to do the job the way the client wants it done without causing a fuss and getting out without anyone knowing I was ever there, that's the challenge, the part of the job that I like." He paused for a moment. "For me, it has always been about the least amount of blood shed, being as efficient as possible, rather than causing the most damage. One of my classmates was like that – 38. For some reason he really enjoyed creating the largest amount of carnage possible. I never liked him."

"You really mean that about paint don't you? I noticed that you were geared up for a paintball game in one of those pictures you gave your mother. You also had hair in it," David said, curious.

"Yes. I set up a paintball league at home so that my children could learn and compete with others. I'm the only one who is old enough yet to play paintball, but the children play on a soft foam team together. Nadine will be moving up to the paintball team I'm on early next year. As for the hair, that's Jack Cooper, my cover. His hair covers up my tattoo. He's friendly, outgoing and makes my teeth ache. I really don't like playing him but it helps keep Nika and my children safe so I do it."

"So, basically Jack is you playing Mathew," David laughed.

47 considered the notion before agreeing. "A little bit quieter, but that's about right," he said with a smile. Just then 47's laptop beeped. Instantly sobering, he opened it up and accepted the connection.

From the computer came the, now undisguised, voice of Diana. "Greetings 47. You know, I should smack you young man for making me grieve for you, but instead I think I'll congratulate you on a job well done. Where on earth did you find a body that could take your place?"

"An arms dealer by the name of Price. I had the opportunity to give him the bar code. I waited three months for it to heal before I retired him," 47 told her. David listened avidly to the conversation between his son and his son's handler. That was another thing he was going to have to ask about later.

"You always were the best at planning ahead," Diana told him, the warmth in her voice unmistakable. "I have some files I thought you might be interested in. Shall I send them to you?"

"As long as you accept my thanks for your phone call, especially after I threatened you the way I did," 47 said. He really did feel bad about that. Diana had come through for him with both the information that he'd asked for and with the information that he'd been betrayed in time to save his life.

"Completely understandable under the circumstances," Diana said. "His is the first file by the way."

47's eyes narrowed as the files began to download. "Is there any chance at all that I could interest you in your former position? Townsend tries, but he's nowhere near as good as you are and he'd be happy to give up the job. He's far more comfortable as my chief of security."

"I would be delighted to. I'll contact him directly. Goodnight 47."

"Goodnight Diana," 47 said.

"So who is in the first file?" David asked. Whatever it was a handler did, it was obvious that Diana was close to 47 and that he counted her as family. He could only hope that they would be as close one day.

"The man who ordered my retirement in Saint Petersburg ten years ago," 47 said. "It worked out in the end, but Nika and I both came too close to dying for me to forgive him."

"Is he one of the ones responsible for putting your mother and sister in the hospital?" David asked with a growl. 47 nodded, his face impassive. "How can I help?"


	14. Chapter 14

Hotel Suite

47 lay on the couch, his Hardballers in his hands with his arms crossed over his chest, dozing. It wasn't the best way to rest, but the traps he'd set up would only give him so much warning, and to any of the hitmen looking for them they were a tempting target as long as they stayed where they were. He was hoping that the next attempt would not come tonight, but wasn't foolish enough to believe it. He just really wasn't looking forward to telling Mike that he had yet another body to give him. That would become very tedious over time.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon how you looked at it, the next hitman to try and approach 47's family was Mathew's friend Tony. Personally 47 didn't like dealing with amateurs, even talented ones. They annoyed him, making far too many mistakes to deserve to live. He knew that this was an attitude that he'd learned from his trainers, but if these people called themselves hitmen they should be able to operate at a higher standard. That Tony did not have his gun out was the only reason that Mike did not have another body to deal with that night.

47 heard a man climbing onto the balcony and got up to see who had taken the bait. The balcony was the most obvious secondary entrance to the suite, and 47 had trapped it accordingly. The man's exclamation upon stepping on the glass beads that 47 had laid out both raised and lowered his opinion of the man. The first was because he'd even noticed the beads. They were made of fragile, clear glass, although of a slightly heavier weight than the ones 47 had used in the hallway, and almost impossible to see at night. Most people would have never even noticed them. That the man had spoken at all, and even worse that he had sworn, was what brought 47's opinion back down.

The man jimmied the lock on the balcony door to the room where Mathew and Greg were sleeping. 47 was already waiting for him, as the door from the main room of the suite had been left open for just this purpose. The tripwire that 47 had set up at the balcony door tripped the man, and if he'd had a weapon out 47 would have killed him then and there. As it was, he kicked the man in the head, knocking him out cold.

47 shook his head at the man's incompetence, even as he searched the man's pockets. Coming up with the man's wallet, he discovered that the man was Mathew's friend Tony even as he relieved him of the pistol he was carrying. 47 considered Tony for a moment before dragging him into the main room of the suite. There he tied Tony up, gagged him and set him in a chair. He could wait there for morning; right now 47 didn't have the patience to deal with him. He had to be ready for better hitmen than Tony showing up.

8888888888888888888888

"DON'T DO THAT!" Jenkins and Whittaker called out as NYPD Detective Pruett raised his hand to bang on the door to 47's suite. "Really not a good idea," Jenkins said as they caught up to him. "You definitely don't want a repeat of what happened the last time the local law banged on his door."

"You've got to be kidding me," Pruett snorted. "We've got bodies on the ground, you two tell me you've got a probable suspect and you don't want me to knock on his door?"

"Not unless you want to die," Jenkins said as Whittaker pulled out his cell phone.

"It's Whittaker, would you mind opening the door? I'd rather not get blown sky high from knocking too hard," Mike said.

Pruett watched in disbelief as the door was opened without fanfare. Shaking his head he walked into the suite following the two Interpol agents, only to turn around and have his jaw drop in surprise as he watched the bald man with a barcode on the back of his head rearm the bomb attached to the door. He looked around the rest of the room, spotting the traps, the mate of the gun in the man's hand, the guy tied to a chair to one side of the room, and the sniper rifle set out on the table in front of the couch. 'Who is this guy?' he wondered.

"Sorry about the early hour," Mike said, acknowledging the fact that 47 was dressed in black sweat pants and a white tank top, obviously sleeping gear, while Jenkins was staring at the glaring Tony. "But two bodies were found in the alley half an hour ago, both known hitmen." Mike pointed over at Tony. "Why'd you leave that one alive?"

47 shrugged. "If the amateurs are killing themselves off, it's fine with me. I hate dealing with them. As for him," he pointed over at Tony with the hand not holding a Hardballer, "he tried to sneak in about 2:30 this morning. He didn't have his weapon out and was making enough noise to wake the dead. I didn't want to deal with him then, so I just tied him up. You can check his gun against the bodies if you want." He went over to the table and picked up the gun he'd taken off of Tony. "It's a piece of junk." He handed the gun to Whittaker.

Mike checked the weapon 47 handed him. 'Only this man would call this a piece of junk,' he thought. It was a good weapon, something that he might have bought for himself, but it wasn't up to 47's standards. 47 only bought the best weapons, case in point – the customized pistol he was holding. This was a few levels down from that. "We'll do that," he told 47. Then he looked sternly at 47. "Do I have your word that you had nothing to do with the deaths of the two men found in the alley this morning?"

"Yes." 47 noticed the doors to the two bedrooms opening, and his father and brothers coming out during Mike's questioning.

Mike nodded. "That's all I needed, thanks. I can take this one off of your hands if you want?" he offered.

"No, I think he's learned his lesson," 47 said.

"Alright, have a better morning," Mike said, and ushered his partner and Pruett out the door.

Pruett exploded once they were back in the hallway and the door was closed. "What the hell was that? That man had enough hardware in there to fight off a small army and all you do is ask if he had killed the two in the alley? And then you take his word for it that he didn't? Who the hell is this guy?"

"That detective is the most lethal man alive," Jenkins smirked. That he was laughing at Pruett was all too self-evident.

"At the height of his career he was the top ranked assassin in the entire world, as much as that sort have a ranking system," Whittaker told him. "He's been retired for the last ten years. He has never left any evidence at any crime scene, period. The only reason that I know who he is, is because the people he worked for set him up and I was there when it happened. We worked out a deal. For all he's a killer, he's also a very honest person and he's never lied to me. If he'd killed those two men, he'd have said so."

"Just like he did when he killed the assassin who tried to kill his sister yesterday," Jenkins said. "He called us right up and told us to come over before the body had time to cool off." The two agents walked off, leaving the stunned detective standing in shock before he managed to throw it off and run after them.

"What was that all about?" David asked. Greg went and got his camera as quietly as he could. He couldn't wait to take a picture of Tony and 47 confronting each other for the first time. He just knew that it was going to be spectacular.

"Two hitmen were retired in the alley last night. Michael came to ask if I had done the job. I hadn't so they left," 47 shrugged.

"And you?" Mathew asked with a laugh as he untied Tony.

"Shit, I came up here to warn you. There's a half a million hit out on all of you and everyone knows about it," Tony said, still glaring at 47.

"You're a little too late about that," David said gruffly. "Samantha and Kelly are in the hospital after the first attempt and Jack here killed the guy who made the next attempt on Kelly. You're lucky he left you alive."

"So who the hell is this guy?" Tony wanted to know, calmer now that he knew why he'd been jumped the minute he came into the suite.

"Tony meet my big brother," Mathew laughed. "Jack, (he took his cue from his dad that his brother's number wasn't to be shared) this is my friend Tony. You're both in the same business."

"You're a hitman?" Tony asked, eyeing the smaller man with a little more respect, especially after the way he had gotten rid of the cops.

"I'm an assassin," 47 corrected bluntly. "And you are a gifted amateur." Greg happily clicked away at the astonished and insulted look on Tony's face. 47's held only disgust. "You're too loud when you move, you swore loudly when you stepped on the glass beads, you're not dressed correctly for the job, and you didn't have your weapon in an easily accessible location last night. You had no idea what you were getting yourself into and you took no precautions.

"If you're lucky enough to have a proper handler, he should be shot for not giving you the information you needed to survive last night. Your trainer, whoever it was, definitely should be killed just so that he doesn't pass on any more bad habits." 47 turned and stalked off towards his father's room, intending to take a shower. Tony just stood there staring, mouth gapping open, while Greg took pictures and Mathew laughed at him. Even David couldn't contain a small smile at the man's expense.

Napa Valley

Grace had realized that her brother made a lot of money killing people. She'd have had to have been an idiot not to. That didn't mean that she was expecting his home to be a mansion in Napa Valley wine country. The place had its own vineyard, orchards, a large pond or small lake she wasn't sure, heck she'd even seen what looked like a little village not far from the vineyard, but the strangest thing she saw by far was the field where a bunch of kids were running around shooting nerf guns at each other. The entire field was covered in hay bales, barrels and other sorts of obstacles that the kids were using as cover.

The security that she was sure was everywhere was pretty much invisible. Oh there were the guards at the gate, and the obvious cameras around the grounds and house, but other than that she couldn't see anything as they drove up. She'd been expecting to see armed guards patrolling with mean dogs at the very least, but instead all she saw was a lovely estate with practically an idyllic feel to it. There were two women on the front steps waiting for them, and Grace thanked her brother's foresight in showing them pictures of his family or she'd have never recognized his wife Nika. A facial tattoo and blue jeans really weren't what one expected from the wife a wealthy man after all.

Nika greeted them warmly, ushering them inside and insisting that they all get settled into their new rooms before they talked about what had brought them there. Mrs. Townsend, the other woman, was the housekeeper and had set them all up with lovely rooms. Grace was startled to find out that her room was actually a suite that included an office that overlooked the gardens at the back of the house. The children were given rooms in what Nika laughingly called the nursery wing, where her own children lived, just one floor above where Nika and 47's own suite was.

The only problem that came up was that they had put Candy in what would become Greg's room, and she'd had to explain that she and Greg had not yet taken that step in their relationship. Rather than being embarrassed or amused, Nika had honestly told her that she was lucky. "In my experience only the really good men are willing to wait so long. When you find such a man who loves you enough to wait, that is the one you should grab onto. Marry that one because he will always respect you," Nika advised.

"Is that what you did?" Candy asked.

Nika laughed hard enough that she had to grab her just visibly pregnant belly. "I was drunk and he knocked me out. I think that was when I fell in love with him. We were married almost six months later. I have never regretted it for a single moment," Nika told her as she showed Candy to a guest room next to Grace's suite.

"How did you two meet?" Grace asked as the four women headed down to the greenhouse where Mrs. Townsend had set up tea.

Nika smiled rather mysteriously. "He brought me roses." They sat down at a small table surrounded by roses and other flowering bushes.

"But what about his job?" Kristine blushed as she realized how rude the question was. "I mean, I'm just trying to understand. I'm not one to throw stones, but I just don't get it. Doesn't it bother you?"

This was the reaction that Nika had feared. Well, this was one thing that she could do. She was going to stop this long before 47 ever had a chance to find out about it. She put a rather wistful expression on her face. "You are an innocent. Cherish that for as long as you can hold onto it. To have it ripped away, it is a very nasty thing to have happen. I have looked into the eyes of true evil. Hell, I've had to service it," she said flatly.

"WHAT?" they chorused.

Nika turned in her chair and raised her shirt so that they could see the scars that decorated her back. "I am not ashamed of what I have survived," she said flatly. She turned back to see the stunned faces of her new family. That was good as it was the reaction she wanted. They would accept her husband for what he was, no matter how hard she had to ram it down their throats.

"I was a slave. The sorts of men that bought me, they were truly evil. In order to survive I had to learn how to tell what a man was truly like under the mask he showed the world. My last owner? He was the height of respectable, with a wife and daughter and hundreds of people who would swear on the lives of their children that he was practically a saint. The sorts of parties that he would give behind closed doors would make you lose your dinners and give you nightmares for life." Here Nika paused so that she could shove those memories away. Those days were long over and would not return. 47 had killed Belicoff and he could not return from the dead.

Then she gave them all a smile, soft and loving, the faraway look in her eyes telling them that she was thinking about her husband. "Then I met 47. For all that he is a killer; he is the kindest and gentlest man I have ever known. Even at his worst, when I really thought that he was going to kill me, he never once harmed me. Any other man, even those who think of themselves as good men, would have left me with bruises that day. Instead, I walked away without a scratch. We were together a handful of days, and he never once took advantage of the fact that I was at his mercy. As I said, he knocked me out when I threw myself at him rather than take advantage of me when I was drunk. Hell, I was practically naked and pawing his clothes off. How many men do you know who are that honorable?"

"I wonder how many of his classmates are still alive?" Grace mused out loud. When the other women looked at her funny she asked them. "What? I don't have a problem with his job and I already know he has brothers!" That sent all of them in gales of laughter, mostly at the irony of Grace finding the perfect guy, only to find out that he was her married little brother.


	15. Chapter 15

New York City

There was only so much that 47 was willing to put up with in regards to regaining his birth family. Having his professional reputation besmirched by associating with an amateur, an amateur who made the most asinine and childish of mistakes, was not one of those things he was willing to accept. As he could not rid himself of Tony (and he damned Nika for explaining that rule about families to him, it would have been so much easier if he could have just killed the man) he was going to have to take Tony in hand and rectify those mistakes before 47 lost what little patience he had.

So after getting breakfast and settling his father and brothers at the hospital under the watchful eyes of Mendoza and the rest of the security team, 47 took Tony out shopping. This was not something that 47 would have normally done. However, 47 did need to pick up a few new weapons and the shop where he normally purchased such things when he was on the East coast had a range in the basement where he could test fire his potential purchases. This would be a good time to test Tony as well. There was also the fact that he had finally decided upon which make of rifle to begin teaching Nadine with.

Mr. Haskell greeted 47 warmly as he always did, although he did give the hitman a curious look for his tagalong. He said nothing though, for which 47 was silently grateful and he decided to double his previous purchase plans to thank the man for his discretion. Without fanfare Mr. Haskell led 47 and Tony down into the subbasement where his range was set up as well as a more comfortable and exclusive showing room.

47 requested a basic set of guns and Mr. Haskell didn't blink an eye, merely delivered the weapons and boxes of ammunition to the range and stepped back to observe. 47 set Tony to test firing all of the guns, carefully watching him for not only the glaring mistakes but the subtle ones as well. By the time Tony had worked his way through all of the guns on the table; it was all that 47 could do not to bury his face in his hands. "I take it back," 47 said seriously. "Your trainer should be tortured, then shot." He turned to Mr. Haskell. "I need to see all of the .22 rifles that you carry, including the ones sized for children."

That bought an eye blink from Mr. Haskell, as Tony was almost twice 47's weight if not height, but he did as requested, again returning with both the guns and ammunition so that they could be test fired. This time it was 47 who was surprised. "Pink?" he asked incredulously.

"It is a favored range rifle for our youngest lady customers," Mr. Haskell explained. "The more feminine young ladies like to have rifles in their favored colors to match their clothing in a target shooting situation. They do tend towards the more camouflaged rifles for hunting."

47 nodded. That was something that he could understand, (barely) or rather he was familiar with the attitude and while Nadine would claim that she would hate him forever if he bought her a pink rifle, he had no doubt that both Emily and Christy would love to have one. Ignoring the color as best he could, 47 did test fire the pink rifle, although it would be a few years before the twins were ready for one. They were still too lax in their treatment of his weapons when they helped him to clean them.

In spite of the color, it turned out to be a nice weapon for a beginner, and 47 noted the make and model for purchasing for his daughters later. He then ran through each of the other child sized rifles in turn. In the end, he picked out a Chipmunk .22 Long Rifle for Nadine. "Please have this gift wrapped along with all of the optional accessories and a supply of ammunition," he requested.

"Of course sir," Mr. Haskell replied, and left the room with the rifle.

47 knew that Mr. Haskell would not be returning for long enough for him to decide just how bad Tony was with the basic rifle in the adult size. "Tony, show me what you can do with this," 47 said, holding out one of the adult sized rifles.

"Why, so you can call me incompetent again?" Tony asked, frustrated. He did not have much patience with being treated like an inexperienced kid.

"Tony, I have never called you incompetent. I called you an amateur and you are one. You are an amateur because you lack the education you need to progress to a higher level than that of a cleaner. This restricts your employment to the local mafia which has several severe drawbacks. They don't pay well, they are far more likely to involve you in criminal activities that have nothing to do with your chosen profession, they are very likely to use you as a bodyguard which will alert the local police to your existence, and they restrict your movements to a single area which increases the chances of you getting caught and convicted. Most of that can be corrected by the simple method of advancing your education.

"You lack the necessary education because your _trainer_ was incompetent. You have enough raw talent, as evidenced by what happened last night, that with a half-way decent set of trainers and a great deal of effort on your part you could become an assassin. You wouldn't be the best by any means, but you could have a solid career with any number of intelligence agencies if you decided not to go freelance."

Tony just stared at 47. 47 sighed. "You are a friend to two of my siblings. As much as I personally would like for the two of us to never have anything to do with each other ever again as I really hate dealing with amateurs; that is not going to be possible. There is also the fact that when you heard the news about the hit on my family, you came to warn them instead of taking the easy money. Those two things bought you some leeway with me; enough that I'm offering to correct some of the most glaring voids in your education."

"You are the first guy who ever got that, the part about cleaning for the mob I mean," Tony said, a little awed. "It sucks big time. I just want to do the job - go out, kill the guy, and that's it, I'm done, none of this standing around bored out of my skull because some old fart wants to look more important by making me into his lap dog for the day." Tony rubbed his mouth, considering. "Do you really think I could do better than cleaning?"

A part of 47, the part that had been screaming about how bad dealing with an ignorant amateur was going to be, relaxed a little at hearing this. Tony actually had the attitude that being a true professional called for. "It depends upon how much effort you put into learning what you need to learn, and your first lesson is this – clean up your mouth. If you are going to be a professional, act like one, not some kid they dragged in off of the streets." Tony nodded a little sheepishly. "Now, let's see what you can do with the rifle."

Napa Valley

Like most handlers Diana Burnwood had thought that she'd known her agent extremely well. By the end of her first day at 47's estate, she had to conclude that she really hadn't known the young man at all. First there was the estate itself. She'd never known that 47 had any interest in wine, or the sort of lifestyle that would require such a home as the mansion. Truthfully she hadn't been aware that he wanted a home at all. The security measures however, now those were the 47 she'd come to know and love, subtle and effective.

Then there were the children, she wasn't quite sure how many there were on the estate all together, but 47 and Mathew accounted for twelve between the two of them. Loud and boisterous, 47's children were far more outgoing than Diana had ever dreamed they could be, and she couldn't blame it on their mother either. His brother Mathew's children were the same way. The two groups of cousins got along like a house on fire, and Diana had found herself checking several times during the day to make certain that they hadn't turned that old saying into reality. There was never a moment's peace.

Perhaps the worst part about the situation was that 47's children were exceedingly polite. Even when the twin girls were chasing down one of the boys for some reason or other, usually in order to drag said boy down to the pond for a dunking, their manners never failed. It was simply unnatural. Yes, 47 was Organization trained, and thus had literally had his manners beaten into him, but these children were growing up in a fairly normal fashion. Diana was almost tempted to go searching for cloning chambers or some other outlandish, mad scientist explanation.

The entire place was chaos personified, and it was the very last thing that she could see her quiet and self-contained agent enjoying. But then, at the center of all the chaos was Nika, and Diana had seen that connection with her own eyes. There was nothing that existed either on paper, or that was accessible by computer that Diana did not know about the woman. A poor Russian farm worker's daughter, sold by the man who had run the collective farm back in the days of communism as a sex slave when she was only thirteen, her years of being sold from one man to the next, all these things Diana knew, and yet nothing could have prepared her for the reality that was Nika.

The woman was simply everywhere, even being pregnant didn't slow her down. If she wasn't down in the vineyard with the field hands, she was out by the pond listening to lectures on frogs given by her eldest son. From the kitchens, to the wine cellars, to the baby and toddler's rooms for naptime stories, to the office to confer with various people, Diana had no idea how she managed to fit it all in one day. "Does she ever stop?" Diana asked Townsend. "Just watching her exhausts me."

"She likes to keep busy when 47 isn't here," Townsend explained. The two were squirreled away in his office, and officially Townsend was handing over the duties of being 47's handler to Diana. That hadn't taken long at all, and so they were talking, getting to know each other. "It's like she can't relax unless she knows he's home. My guess is that she's worried sick he's not going to come back from a contract one day, so she keeps busy to keep her mind off of it."

"She's right to be concerned. He isn't working a contract this time. He's trying to prevent an open contract from being completed. That's much more dangerous," Diana sighed. She didn't blame 47 one bit for his actions. This family hadn't thrown him away the way he'd always been told. They'd searched for him, or for what had happened to him for nearly all of his life. Now that he had been reunited with them, they were far more accepting than she'd dreamed would be possible.

"At least we've managed to hide the kids back trail," Townsend said. "No one is going to be able to tell where they went through that mess."

"Don't underestimate the Brotherhood," Diana warned.

"Another group of assassins?" Townsend asked.

"No, the upper echelon of the Organization. Believe it or not, they're religious fanatics that believe they are curing the world's ills by removing those who have dedicated themselves to evil," Diana told him.

"You're kidding," Townsend said.

Diana shook her head. "Unfortunately, no I'm not. They really do believe that, and they're not about to give up without a fight because of it. Each and every one of them came from the ranks of the assassins the Organization trained. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, and I've broken it. Saying that they're going to be upset is rather like saying that the ocean is a little bit wet."


	16. Chapter 16

New York

47 had several ideas on how to deal with the hitmen that were out to kill his family. Most of them involved death in various ways, but there were also the men behind the open contract to deal with. Like the contract on his own life ten years before, there would be no stopping it until there was no one left alive willing to make the payout for the hit. That meant that he had to deal with the hitmen that were already here in New York and trying to complete the contract in a slightly different manner than he had Bryer.

47 and Tony headed back to the hospital after dropping off 47's purchases at the hotel, save for Tony's new .22 pistol which was all that 47 felt he could be trusted with and a few extras that 47 had hidden on his person. Once there, 47 received an update from Mendoza. His mother had been transferred to the progressive care unit that morning, and two more attempts had been made on the ladies lives.

These attempts had been done by more amateurs, ones that were even less able than Tony, and Mendoza and his men had easily taken care of the situation, although Detective Pruett was reported to have looked like he was working on an ulcer over the situation. 47 wasn't surprised. The moment the contract was out, and it was known to be open to any who could complete it, the amateurs would be coming out in hordes.

The professionals would fall into two classes, those who took the contract because it was too good to pass up and those who would avoid it like the plague simply because they understood what the chances of pulling the job off were. 47's reputation did precede him after all. Then there would be those very few who would not take the contract under any circumstances because they understood the dangerous precedent it set. Unlike the Organization's agents, most of the hitmen and women of the world had families of some kind, and by mutual unspoken agreement, they were usually off-limits.

David, Mathew, and Greg had been sent down to the cafeteria with orders to eat lunch by one of the doctors, so that's where Tony and 47 went after Mendoza had finished his report. Three very worried men looked at them as they slid into the booth. 47 was actually pleased. The amateurs had caused a great deal of fuss (one of the reasons in his mind that they actually were amateurs) and that would make it much easier to get his father and brothers to agree to what he had planned. "How would the three of you like to play bait?"

McGivney's Pub

Whittaker and Jenkins were working on the latest in an untold number of cups of coffee, this time in a cop bar where they could actually sit down and relax for a bit. 47's family hadn't been the only ones attacked in the last 24 hours, they had just been the best protected. That was the real reason Detective Pruett, who was at the bar waiting for his food, had been so frustrated with them. He'd wanted an answer to the question of why nearly every hitman in the city was suddenly up in arms and attacking random people.

"Why?"

The one word question was one that Mike had been waiting nearly an entire day for. "Because I told you the truth. He said that if I forced him to kill me, he'd kill Jenny and the kids. Then he asked me how a good man decides when to kill someone, because I'd killed people before even if my number isn't anywhere near his, and then he told me about the Organization," Mike told him.

"Back alley pimps indeed," Jenks agreed.

"Jenks he wanted out, alive, and he'd set it up so that would happen as long as I went along with it. Between that, what he'd told me about the Organization (and if anything I know now that he understated things there), and the fact that we both owed his lady our lives, I really couldn't do anything else." Mike poked at his coffee cup.

"You really think it's the same woman?" Jenks asked.

"I know it is," Mike said firmly. "I saw a picture at the hospital. She still has that dragon tat on her face," here he shook with almost silent laughter, "and he'd stopped shaving his head. He's got some really cute kids too. I imagine that group is going to make one hell of a paintball team when they're old enough."

Jenks laughed in agreement. The world's top assassin played paintball with his children. The opposing teams wouldn't stand a chance. Then he stopped, his mood shifting quickly. "I would have gone along with it if you'd given me a chance."

"My call, my risk," Mike said in no uncertain terms. He was the senior of the two of them and it was his responsibility.

"Still," Jenks said, and then shrugged. It was ten years in the past, no need to dwell on it. "You like him don't you?"

"As long as I don't have to chase him, I do," Mike said. He looked up as Pruett joined them.

"I don't understand why anyone would offer that much money to kill a bunch of kids," Pruett sighed. His sandwich and fries weren't the best sort of meal to have after a night and day like they'd had, but it was better than nothing.

"These bastards have been around for a long time," Jenks told him. "As far as they're concerned, they're just cleaning up a mess, nothing more. It sure as hell doesn't matter to them that the mess is a bunch of abused kids and their parents."

"They want to go back to officially not existing," Mike told him. "They raised and trained the best hitmen in the world. What we don't know is why the Organization got started, or when for that matter."

"Secret societies of assassins should go back to being myths and stop killing kids in my city," Pruett growled.

"At least 47's kids and his brother's kids are safe," Mike sighed.

"How do you know?" Pruett asked.

"Did you see any signs of kids in that hotel room? There is no way he'd leave those kids vulnerable," Jenks said.

"Yeah, but we're not going to be able to keep the other kids safe for long," Pruett said. "We've already lost one family, and another's just been sent to the hospital."

Jenks cursed quietly and Mike shook his head. "Don't tell anyone, but honestly I think that the only way this is going to end well is if a certain nameless person decides he's had enough," Jenks said. "What? You know it's true," he said to Mike's double take.

"I never thought I'd hear you say that," Mike admitted.

"I'd forgive him for the arm in a second if he came out of retirement to save these kids' lives," Jenks said seriously.

"Arm?" Pruett asked.

"His last contract, the one where the Organization betrayed him, we caught up with him at the Saint Petersburg train station. He shot us both there, I caught the bullet in my vest and ended up with broken ribs, but Jenkins here damned near had his arm blown off," Mike exaggerated a little.

"If he's such a good hitman, then why didn't he kill you both?" Pruett asked.

"His wife asked him not to," Jenkins said, with a wry smile. "I still need to send her a thank you gift."

"What do you send the wife of a hitman when she saves your life from her husband?" Mike wondered.

Airport

The plan was simple enough. David, Mathew and Greg made themselves obvious entering the airport, with luggage and nervous conversation. That in itself was really all that was needed as 47 knew that there were more than a few handlers keeping track of them now. In fact, 47 had dropped numerous bits of information into the gossip chain that would lead the people hunting them to believe that Kelly and Samantha had already been smuggled out of the hospital, leaving when the children had disappeared, and that the men were on their way out of the city.

47 was already there with Tony, waiting for the men at one of the many seating groups scattered around the public area. With the new security precautions neither of the two hitmen had their guns with them, or indeed anything metallic that would set off the metal detectors or anything in their pockets that would need to be run through a scanner. That did not mean that they were unarmed.

The two hour wait that most airports recommended for passengers worked in their favor in this instance. There were lots of people sitting around waiting for their flights, more than enough to cover the fact that none of them were actually taking a flight at all. "What do you see?" 47 murmured to Tony in Italian as David sat down next to him. To anyone who was looking, it would appear that 47 hadn't taken his eyes off of his laptop, when in fact he had chosen a place to sit that would allow him to see everything around him, either from within his line of sight or reflected in the many mirrored surfaces in the area.

Tony stood up and stretched, before ambling over to a vendor and getting a paper. He settled back down in his seat next to 47. "I saw two people who are far too interested in our friends and one guy shaved bald. I figure that I need to include him because he looks far too much like you to be coincidence."

"You missed one, but not bad. Your observation skills are better than I'd hoped for. The paper was a nice way to get a good look around. Now check out everything that you can see that can be used as a mirror. Do you see that flight attendant?" 47 asked.

"The walking invitation to sex?" Tony asked, his voice laden with irony. "I don't see how I could miss her."

"The invitation is a distraction," 47 instructed. "The tattoos behind her ear are black tears. That's the mark of one of the few female assassin groups." He tapped Greg's foot with his own to get his little brother started on his part of wiggling the bait. Greg got up and walked over to the tiny airport bar, getting a drink. The so-called flight attendant took the bait, chatting Greg up. When he followed her, 47 closed his laptop and followed them both at a distance. He passed by the bald man, and he was able to confirm for himself that he was another Organization assassin, one that 47 invited along with a tilt of his head.

They ducked down a maintenance corridor and 47 had one of his garrotes out the moment all four of them were out of sight. His brother assassin removed a small knife from his belt, and indicated that he would take the woman – giving Greg, and thus the contract, to 47. That peaked 47's attention. The Organization wasn't known for teaching cooperation between its agents. He nodded in agreement, allowing the kill to go to the other agent.

While the other agent grabbed the woman from behind and slit her throat, 47 caught up with Greg and shoved him into a doorway, putting himself between the two men. For some reason this did not surprise the other agent, who cleaned his knife and returned it to its hiding spot. "32," the agent introduced himself.

"47," he said in turn. He nodded his head at Greg. "My brother Greg. Why?" he asked, his voice curt and demanding.

"Cleaning the training center and retiring everyone currently connected to it makes sense. That's just business." 47 nodded. He'd come to that conclusion himself soon after learning about the training center being discovered by the FBI. That was the reason that he really hadn't been surprised to find out that two of the trainers were dead from Mike. "What does not make sense is killing the families connected to the boys. We're supposed to be orphans," 32 said.

"Rejects and disposable," 47 returned knowingly. Greg made a disgusted sound low in his throat, but otherwise kept silent.

32 nodded. "Why kill them? Why put up such a high payment for the family of an agent who is supposed to have been retired over ten years ago? Even if your parents hadn't disposed of you, there shouldn't have been any reason for them to still be looking for you. Those are desperation prices. What are they trying to hide? The obvious answer is that we've been lied to. I don't like being lied to. It makes my job very difficult when that happens."

47 smirked. "I share your dislike. I was shocked to find out that I had been kidnapped and that my family was still looking for me. According to my handler, over 75 percent of the boys taken to the training center were kidnapped from their families. I was…fortunate in my birth family. They are not opposed to my profession."

"Fortunate indeed," 32 agreed. "My handler has been retired and I am curious as to my own past. However, I am even more curious about the answers to my questions."

"Guard the boys and their families," 47 told him. "My handler is tracking those responsible for the contracts. I do not allow anyone to attempt to harm my family without retaliation." 32 blanched as he realized just what that meant – and which assassin 47 was.

88 88 88 88

A man dressed in 47's trademark black suit, white shirt and red tie, with his shaved head and barcode tattoo, sat down between David and Tony. "Do you do this often?" David asked under his breath.

"Not often, most people are smart enough not to come after the boss," said the decoy. "Every once in a while they'll go after the missus and I'll do a stand in so he can take care of it. Nobody touches the kids. Only one guy was stupid enough to make that mistake." The decoy shuddered and pulled his coat closed to cover for it. "The boss sent him back to his employer – in lots of different packages, over the course of a week, to different locations including his employer's home. Everyone who has any connections at all has heard that story."

David smirked a bit. "Sounds like he had a good idea to me."


	17. Chapter 17

Napa Valley

The family dining room of the Cooper household was unusually subdued, especially for a game day. The reason for this was simple – for the first time 47 would not be there at the game. The Wilkins children were affected by their cousins' moping, although they really did not understand why it was so terrible that their uncle did not make it to the game. "When will Daddy come home Momma?" Emily asked, lethargically poking her scrambled eggs.

"It will take time before the doctors will let your Grandma or Aunt Kelly leave the hospital. They are both out of the ICU, so they are getting better slowly. Daddy will have to stay in New York until they can come stay with us so that he can protect them," Nika told her.

"I wish Daddy would just kill all the bad guys and come home," Christy groused.

"Christy! You can't say that!" Alison said, shocked.

"Why not? You're family. I can talk about Daddy's job with family, just not anybody else – he said so," she said reasonably.

"We should send Dad a bomb," Alexander said. "He can kill lots of bad guys with one of those."

Nika easily ignored the shocked looks she and her children were getting thanks to this discussion. "Yes, a bomb would kill lots of people…but could you make sure that you only killed bad guys?"

"No," Alexander groaned as he slumped back down in his seat in defeat.

"Don't worry. Your Dad knows what he's doing. Just remember that this is not business. If it was business, your Dad would come home for the game and then go back to work. Your Dad is protecting his new family just like he protects us. Family is always the most important thing," Nika told them.

Little heads nodded around the table. "Does that mean that Dad will need a new suit like he did when that drug dealer tried to sell drugs at our school?" Nadine asked.

"Why would he need a new suit?" Alison asked.

Nadine rolled her eyes. "When you kill people, blood comes out. Sometimes it's a lot of blood. If Dad gets a lot of blood on his suit, it gets ruined and he needs a new one."

"He killed a drug dealer?" Mark asked, although he wasn't sure if this was a serious discussion or not.

"Sure," Alexander shrugged as though it were something routine, which it was. "He tried to give me drugs, and drugs hurt people. Dad wasn't going to let him hurt us."

"It's ok Aunt Kristine," Nadine tried to reassure her stricken looking aunt. "Dad only kills bad guys; like drug dealers, people who hurt kids, and crime bosses - people that do things like that."

Candy finally found her voice. "You told them about?"

"We refuse to place them at risk," Nika said firmly. "If the Organization found out about them, there was a good chance that they would try to take the boys from us and kill us and the girls. There are also people out there who would try to harm them simply because they are our children. So far, what 47 did to the first one who tried has kept us safe, but there are always people with more greed than sense. So we do not hide such things from our children."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Kristine said, a worried look on her face.

"Dad killed him and sent his body back to his boss. It wasn't in very good shape 'cause Dad says that made it scarier for the boss guy," Alexander offered.

"Don't worry, 47 didn't let any of the children actually see what he'd done," Nika reassured her sister-in-laws.

"Aunt Nika, why do you call Uncle Jack, 47?" Jason asked. Most of the more gruesome parts of the discussion had gone over his head and so he was focusing on something that he had been wondering about for the last few days.

"Because the people who stole him from his momma and daddy when he was a baby gave him and the other boys they stole numbers instead of names. Most people would be very mean to him if they found out that he did not have a real name, so he picked the name Jack to tell them. We don't make fun of him because we are his family, so we call him 47," Nika explained.

"But only when only family can hear us because we don't want people to make fun of Daddy," Emily said seriously.

"Does he like 47 or Jack better?" April wanted to know. The adults were glad that the kids were getting off of the subject of 47's job, and began to relax.

"47 because it is his name, but he does not like to be teased," Nika said seriously.

"I don't like to be teased either. What game is nerf guns? Christy and Emily said that we were going to a game?" April asked, confused.

"First there are teams. Emily, Christy, Alexander and Nadine all play on one team together. Two teams will play capture the flag, protect the president, or other games like that. Every team gets to play at least twice, and the rest of us have a big picnic while they play. At the end of the year we have a big tournament to see which team is the best at which game," Nika said.

Airport

The second stage of the bait plan was not going as well as the first. While one hitman had followed Mathew into the luggage area of the airport, (the idea was to get the hitmen to think that they were sneaking out of New York at that particular airport) two more had shown up unexpectedly to follow 47. The two hitmen attacked 47, slashing at him with spiked brass knuckles that he easily avoided, but in the process he was moved away from Mathew.

That was all that Mathew had time to see before he too was involved in a fight. Where the guy after him had gotten the knife, (it was no longer than three inches and made of plastic, but that didn't seem to matter) Mathew had no clue but he was good with it. Within moments, Mathew was reduced to throwing whatever he could get his hands on to keep the hitman far enough away from him that he could not stick or slice Mathew with his little knife. It was a good thing for Mathew that 47 had chosen the baggage area to do this. With that many suitcases, he had his choice of what to fling, but they were closed and in most cases locked, so he flung entire packs as well as whatever he could pull out.

In one sense the altercation lasted forever, simply because it took 47 a good five minutes to subdue the two hitmen that had ambushed him. In another, it hardly lasted any time at all as Mathew spent all of the time desperately throwing things until he ended up being chased around several pieces of equipment. Turning around and throwing a punch at the face of the man chasing him turned out to be not such a good idea, as it turned out to be 47, or rather 47 had the hitman that had been chasing Mathew partially down on the ground. That in turn meant that Mathew's desperately thrown punch met with 47's cheek rather than the hitman he meant to hit.

"Shit! Sorry," Mathew said as 47 turned with the punch and landed on top of the now thoroughly flattened hitman. For a moment, just as 47 looked up at him, the blood in Mathew's veins froze. There was absolutely nothing there. Grace had called it a look of detachment, but seeing it for himself, for the first time Mathew could finally say that he understood how his best friend and his big brother could kill people for a living. In that split second, Mathew went from surprise and cringing empathy to instinctive fear for his life to grief for his brother's damaged heart. He had no idea what sort of abuse 47 had suffered to cause that look to become a part of his personality, but it was clear to him that it would always be a part of his brother.

Then in the next instant, like a switch had been flipped or a door slammed shut, that dead look was gone, and Mathew could see the caring (if hesitantly and tentatively) and quiet man he was beginning to build a brotherly relationship with. 47 shrugged off the blow. "I've had worse." Mathew didn't doubt it for a minute. 47 looked around. "You've done a good job in making a mess. That'll be helpful. You might want to step back several feet. Arterial spray travels farther than you'd think." Mathew scrambled back, all too willing to take 47's word for it. He watched as 47 pulled the hitman's head back and cut the man's throat with his customary efficiency.

FBI Missing Persons Unit

"Fluffy Bunny mobile for the new baby's nursery?" Jenks suggested with a grin.

Mike glared. "We want to thank her, not piss him off."

"What are you two doing?" Pruett asked as he pulled up a chair to the file laden table the two Interpol agents were working at.

"We're still trying to find a thank you gift," Jenks chuckled. "What brings you back to see us Detective?"

"It seems your boy has been busy, and you were right about him calling up and ratting himself out about it too. I've got over fifteen bodies spread out all over JFK, ten at LaGuardia, and twelve at Newark – and he called me in when he was done making a mess each time, although he was gone by the time I got out to each airport," Pruett huffed.

"Makes sense, he likes to be the one in control of the situation if at all possible," Mike said. "They did raise him to be a control freak, at least where assassinations are concerned."

"And he doesn't know you from Adam, so he doesn't trust you at all," Jenks pointed out. "They were all hitmen?"

"And a few women, all of them known to take on any contracts that came their way according to their rap sheets. They mostly died with weapons in their hands too, or at least very close by," a disgruntled Pruett admitted. "The feds are up in arms over the sheer amount of plastic knives and other weapons that got past their security. Just what is this guy playing at?"

Mike shook his head. "He's not playing. This is deadly serious to him. As long as his family is in danger, he will do anything it takes to keep them safe and right now, that means killing anyone who is willing to take those contracts. My guess is that he's gotten his brothers to play bait for him. From what little I've seen of them, it wouldn't take much to get them to do that. They're all very upset at what happened to their mother and sister."

"Oh yeah," Jenks agreed. "Dangle a couple of half a million dollar contracts out in the open where anyone who is willing to go after it will see it, and kill anyone who tries sounds like something he'd do. That way he controls where and when an attempt on their lives goes down, and he picks off anyone who tries to take the bait."

"Out of sheer curiosity's sake, how did he kill them?" Mike wanted to know.

"Most of them were either garroted or had their throats slit. A couple had their necks broken. What I don't get is that it looks like he went out of his way to make as much of a mess as possible while staying out of public view. All of the bodies were found in places like maintenance corridors, or baggage handling areas, places where only workers are supposed to be, and even those were the lesser used areas," Pruett said. He just knew that these two men knew the answers to his questions, especially after their way of introducing him to the man who had called him up to report the corpses.

"The mess is deliberate, but not for public consumption," Mike willingly told him. "I'm sure that, although you won't admit it, there are a very few police officers amongst your department's much finer officers who are willing to pass on a few tidbits of information. That is who the mess is for. The information will leak back to those who are thinking about taking those contracts and they'll be thinking about the old saying about things that are too good to be true."

"Half a million dollars for each member of a family that seemingly has no protection or clue sounds like the goose that laid the golden egg to me, especially when it includes young children," Jenks said. "That lot will get the hint real fast that this isn't a family you want to mess with once they hear about what happened to the last lot who tried."

Mike agreed. "They'll hear about the one who tried to take out his sister, and then they'll hear about the ones who tried to take out his brothers, compare the increasing violence and hopefully decide that whoever is putting up the contract is charged."

"Charged? Charged with what?" Pruett asked, confused.

Jenks laughed and Mike shrugged. "Sorry, I know better than to use slang. I meant that whoever has put out the contract is high on drugs."

"Ah, to be charged around here is to be accused of a number of offences, such as murder charges. We'd say he's on crack, for being high on crack cocaine, and I hope you're right," Pruett said.


	18. Chapter 18

Hospital, New York City

"You need to understand, she's not upset at you. She's mad at the Organization, the ones who were responsible for taking you from her, the ones who taught you how to kill people, and the ones who decided that everyone connected to the training center should be killed," Mike told 77. He was perhaps sixteen years old, (Mike would have to look it up to make sure but that was neither here nor there at the moment) and he had just killed two men to protect himself and his newly found mother. Mike knew perfectly well that it wasn't killing the men that had upset the boy, it was his mother's reactions to his use of the skills he had been taught.

"She won't stop crying," 77 said. "I don't understand why she won't stop crying. I didn't let them hurt her."

"She's crying because your choices have been taken away from you," Mike said simply. "All she can see is that whatever future you might have chosen if you had grown up with her is gone. It's not completely true, but she can't see that right now.

"You see, if you had grown up with her then in a few years you would have been presented with a choice about going into a profession where there is a chance that you would need to kill someone, such as the armed services or being a police officer. Relatively few people go into those sorts of professions and they are generally not what most parents consider good ones because they don't want their children to have to kill anyone." Personally Mike loved being a cop, but it wasn't the best paying job in the world or the most respected and that was what most parents wanted for their child, so he wasn't lying.

"Right now she's thinking that those are the only ones that you will ever be able to have. As I said, it's not completely true; you can still go into any profession you cared to. The one thing that can't be done is taking the training you were given away from you. You will always react in certain ways, ways that they taught you to. No one can undo the past."

"Of course not," 77 scoffed. Neither the Interpol Inspector, nor the teen noticed the teary-eyed woman who entered the waiting room and began listening into their conversation.

"That doesn't mean that she doesn't want to change the past," Mike told him. "She's your mother. She wants you to have a good life, one far away from such things as murder because she doesn't want you to be hurt." The boy looked confused and Mike tried to think of another way to explain. "She wants you to have a life where you are happy and she'd worried that because of your training, the only thing that will make you happy is causing others pain. I know that you've seen that happen."

77 nodded with a bit of a disgusted look on his face. "88 is like that. I was hoping that they'd retire him, but the training center was shut down first."

"People who are like that, well they tend to get themselves into a lot of trouble out here in the real world. It's part of my job to track such people down and make sure that they're sent to jail when they give in to that impulse and hurt someone," Mike told him. "And while I doubt that they would have retired 88, he really wasn't what they were trying to train you to be."

"What did they want then?" 77 asked, curious enough not to protest the change of subject. Knowing what the trainers wanted had helped him to survive. If someone who enjoyed killing others wasn't what they had wanted, then what had they wanted him to be?

"They wanted someone who wouldn't kill more than he had to, but who never hesitated to kill either. It's a delicate balance to teach someone and honestly they went and did it in the worst way possible," Mike said. "The lives that they were destroying in the process never bothered them."

"Did they ever manage it?" 77 asked.

"Yes, and then they went and betrayed him." Mike huffed. "It was completely stupid of them if you ask me. It was a classic example of paranoia causing someone to shoot themselves in the ass."

"To say the least," 47 agreed as he walked into the room. "Of course I benefitted from it. I met my wife on that assignment. They told me she was a witness in order to set me up to be killed." He nodded to the woman as he passed her. "Hello Mike."

"Hello 47. This is 77 and his mother, Catherine," Mike introduced.

47 greeted them both in turn. "I take it that both of you are having trouble adjusting?"

"Yes," Catherine admitted. "It's not easy knowing my son is capable of killing someone, much less so easily."

"It's simply a skill. Perhaps it would be best if the two of you came home with me. It would probably help both of you to adjust to live with my security people for a while," 47 offered. While taking Tony back to the vineyard was an imposed obligation that he wished he didn't have, helping 77 and his mother was something that he actually wanted to do.

It was all too easy to put himself in 77's place as he could have very easily ended up with a birth family that had hysterics over his profession instead of the supportive family he had gotten. This boy didn't even have the experience of a few years as an agent to help him get used to the world outside of the training center. It would also allow him to do something for himself that he'd never thought he would be able to do.

While Tony was someone his own standards forced him to teach, the thought of making 77 his apprentice was much more appealing. The boy was nearly completely trained to his own standards and all he would have to do would be to put the finishing touches on. Getting Catherine to accept her son was a small price to pay for that. She was noticeably reluctant though. "Perhaps Agent Whittaker and his partner would be willing to help you settle in?" he offered as well. He thought that would tip the scale in his direction. Catherine would be much more willing to trust the men who had returned her child to her.

"That would be wonderful," Catherine said hopefully.

"I think we can take a few days off," Mike agreed. He'd have to take Jenks shopping before they left, as long as they could decide on a thank you gift. It would allow them to deliver it in person.

Paintball Field, Napa Valley

"I hear he's hired a new secretary." The woman's voice dripped with false sympathy and a hint of vicious glee. She wasn't trying to hide, in fact her voice carried much farther than it usually would at a game, since for once the object of her derision wasn't accompanied by her husband, the object of the gossip in question.

"I guess he's gotten tired of the pregnant look," another replied in the same manner.

"Well it's not too surprising; the brood mare is getting up there in years." This one wasn't even trying to pretend to be sympathetic and the cruel amusement in her voice was strong enough for everyone to hear.

Nika's new sister-in-laws weren't slow on the uptake and realized immediately that Nika was the one who was being attacked. "New secretary?" Grace asked her quietly.

"Ah, apparently my and Jack's long term affair is over," Townsend told her sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he leaned over to help himself to a piece of fried chicken. "Don't listen to them. They're jealous that Jack won't sleep around on Nika, so they make up the worst sort of gossip."

"Besides, he didn't hire a secretary. He hired Diana to be his handler again," Nika said. She nodded over at the matronly woman who was currently showing Jason Wilkins how to hold his soft foam rifle so that he could aim it properly.

Diana sent Jason off to play with the other children who had gotten together to play when a team wasn't on the field. "I seriously have no idea why anyone would believe that I am interested in either incest or cradle robbing, but if they continue to include me in such gossip they will regret it." That was said loudly enough that the so-called ladies were alerted to Diana's identity. "I'm grateful to be able to work with Jack again. He's a wonderful young man, but he's hardly what I would call dating material."

"What does Jack think about the gossip?" Kristine asked. With all of the younger children on the field, she was more inclined to ask.

Nika and Townsend both laughed. "The one time someone asked him if he wasn't bored with Nika, he looked at the guy like he had two heads and told him he was married to a human tornado and had five kids, why would anyone think that he could ever be bored?" Townsend managed to say.

Nika preened a little. "I have a wonderful husband who thinks that having an affair is the height of stupidity."

"Oh?" Grace asked.

Nika laughed. "He's simply seen far too many so-called important men get caught with their pants down and end up dead." What she didn't say, but the others all knew was that it was usually 47 taking advantage of such impulses to kill a target.

Candy looked around, searching for another subject. The last thing she wanted was to get into an innuendo laden discussion about 47's job. She found one on the playing field. "You know, your kids are little holy terrors," she said.

Nika only grinned. No one had ever considered that the four Cooper children would ever be anything other than good shots, even though they were still small children wielding bulky toy weapons. Their father had been the one to teach them after all. What did surprise people who were watching them play on their foamball team was how good they were at tactics.

At this age most children were still barely getting the concept of hiding and then jumping out to shoot, especially the youngest members of the teams. Christy and Emily were setting up simple ambushes, often using each other as the temptation to get their opponents to fall for their traps. Alexander was simply plowing through the field, using every bit of cover that he could and shooting his opponents as they came into his field of fire, rather than simply running and shooting anything that moved. More than one child had been taken out of the game due to 'friendly fire'. Nadine had become a little general, organizing different types of attacks on the entire opposing teams rather than just a single group that she could see.

"Oh they're good kids," Townsend protested. "They're just really enthusiastic about showing off what their dad taught them."

"They are," Nika admitted proudly. "They take their lessons from their father seriously because he takes them seriously, and not just how to shoot their weapons but how to capture the enemy team as well. They see how seriously he takes his work, and any little thing that goes along with it. As far as they are concerned, these games are where they show their father what they've learned. They are not as focused as he is, but he says that is a blessing. He does not want them to have the sort of life that he lived before we met."

"That goes without saying," Diana said, passing out lemonade.

"It helps that Jack knows how to make these games fun," one of the other mothers said as she took one of the drinks. "No one really objects that he or the kids are so good at them when he is so willing to teach us as well."


	19. Chapter 19

Napa Valley

Normally 47 would have seen if he could penetrate his own security upon his arrival home. This served two purposes. The first was to see if he could find any holes in the security system. There were always improvements that could be made to any system and 47 wasn't arrogant enough to believe that his system could not be defeated. The second was to see if any of his security people were slacking off.

His habit had driven Townsend nuts before he'd married Nika. However, simply appearing for breakfast, or even worse coming out of Nika's bedroom, when Townsend didn't even know he was in town had proved his point to the man without his having to say anything. Fortunately, his willingness to show Townsend exactly how he had circumvented the security had done a lot to cement the respect Townsend had for him and they had quickly fallen into a good working relationship with each other.

This time the large group 47 had with him did not allow him to indulge in such activities. He did not want any of them to discover how elaborate the security systems were. That would defeat the purpose of having designed the systems to be as invisible as possible in the first place.

Townsend and Mendoza met the group at the front gate. As the four taxis off loaded their passengers and luggage before reloading them into the waiting vans, 47 quietly gave Townsend orders on where to house their guests and the level of access each was allowed. Mike and Jenks were easy. They were sent to the main guest cottage and were given access to only the public portions of the grounds and main house.

Tony, Catherine and 77 were given two of the smaller cottages down in the security village. They were given security team access, which excluded only those things that were deemed family only. While those were mainly those things associated with 47's real work, there were things that were covered under that classification that weren't - such as bedrooms, the laundry room, and Mrs. Townsend's kitchen. The things that weren't included under family only were such things as the salle, weapons range, and 47's private gym.

47 made certain that his security guards were given far more perks than most who held such jobs, such as housing their families on the estate and giving them superior equipment and facilities for their own use. It was one of the ways that he ensured their loyalty. He had studied such men and women for years in his work as an assassin. He knew what was likely to create animosity and resentment and what was likely to create loyalty. Thus he made certain to learn about each of the guards and their quirks and families – such as Mendoza's hatred of cold and snow and less than frequent dating history. His treatment of each individual guard was based on this study. He would not allow anyone to guard his family that he could not ensure was loyal to his wife, if not to him.

"Mrs. and Miss Wilkins arrived this morning," Townsend began his report when 47 had finished. "Both ladies are in good shape considering the stress of being moved. Doctor Goodman has agreed to live on site until they're out of danger. I've brought in three nurses to assist him and Hanna told me that she would be helping out as well because this looks to be one of Nika's easier pregnancies. If we didn't know that she's pregnant we'd probably have another Demyan on our hands."

"What do you mean? What happened when Nika was pregnant with him?" David asked.

"You named your son Demyan?" Jenks sputtered. He and 47 were the only ones who spoke Russian in the group, so those who hadn't gotten into one of the vans yet were wondering what the matter was with the child's name.

47 scowled. "No, that was Nika's idea. We didn't know that she was pregnant until she went into labor. She almost died during the delivery. I will never understand how she can laugh about it."

"Better for the boy if she laughs about it," Mike offered. "That way he won't blame himself for almost killing his mother. What does Demyan mean anyway?"

"Killer," 47 and Jenks said.

"Nika always laughs and says that he's more my child than the others," 47 continued.

"It's true though," Mendoza snickered. "That's one handful of a three year old. I'm half tempted to give him another bodyguard just to give Drake half a chance to survive the stress. Demyan actually made it onto the foam ball field today."

"Don't worry," Townsend reassured 47, when the father shot Mendoza a hard look. "Drake fished him up off the field before he could take more than two steps onto the field itself."

"He's sneaky and stubborn huh?" David asked, remembering what 47 had told him about his grandson, as Townsend held the door to a limo for him and his sons. Normally the vehicle was kept for times when 47 and Nika went to a party or other social engagement that they were required to attend as owners of the vineyard, usually charity events. Townsend had brought it to the gate because it would allow him to give 47 a briefing on the Brotherhood without the Interpol agents hearing about what 47 was planning.

Townsend got in after the four men. "Oh yes. He's a daddy's boy and he's always trying do what his dad does, which includes sneaking up on people." He settled into his seat as the limo began the drive to the main house, and directed a stern look at 47. "Why didn't you bring Diana here ten years ago? She's already got a stack of files this high on the Brotherhood, everything from their birth places to their current whereabouts." He held his hand about three feet off the floor.

"No one would believe I was dead if she disappeared as well and it would have been a poor way to repay her for saving my life to get her retired," 47 pointed out. "While no one is as good at her job as she is, you did do the job well."

Townsend snorted. "I'm a rank amateur compared to her and you know it." He sighed. "This is going to be one tough job boss."

47 could have been carved out of stone. "They put my mother and sister in the hospital." Townsend nodded. It was a very simple rule actually, and one that Townsend approved of. No one harmed 47's family in any way and lived. Just because Samantha and Kelly Wilkins hadn't been members of 47's family for long did not mean that the rule did not apply to them as well.

"There are fifteen men in the Brotherhood. They were all the best at the time they were inducted into the leadership of the Organization. They all divide up the day to day operations of the Organization, but each one also has personal projects that they pursue. Diana says that they're convinced that they're making the world a better place. I'm not too sure that they actually have an end plan," Townsend said.

"They have an end plan," 47 said with a certainty that could only come from having grown up within the Organization. "Whether or not it is viable and how many of them truly believe in it is something else altogether."

"Well, the one thing that they all have in common is that they still take contracts, but those contracts are all very difficult jobs. The one thing that you've got going for you is that they are all older than you are. That will slow them down some, but they've obviously learned to compensate so don't expect them to be anything but very good." Just then the limo pulled up to the front door.

Townsend switched topics so smoothly as he got out that anyone not in the car would never have realized that he had changed anything at all. "Nadine is so proud of the fact that they won all of their games that she's practically floating," he said as he held the limo's door open.

"All of their games?" 47 asked, surprised. "Which side did they take on President?" he picked up his weapons case and headed for the front door, his brothers and father right behind him with their own bags.

"They took both sides – Kill and Protect," Townsend said proudly. "Nadine was also the last one standing in both of the eliminations games."

"I'm glad that I picked up a rifle for her while I was gone. It sounds like she deserves a big present," 47 said.

"Ah, so that's who the squirrel gun is for," Townsend said. "I'd wondered about it when it arrived."

"Make sure it's at the breakfast table waiting for her in the morning," 47 instructed. "She's earned it and maybe seeing her get a real gun will encourage the others to pay more attention to learning the safety rules."

"You got it boss. See you in the morning," Townsend said as he headed off to his own bed.

47 showed his brothers and father where their rooms were before checking in on his children. After the last few days he needed to see that they were safely sleeping in their own beds. At least, they were supposed to be sleeping. "Girls," 47 said quietly from the doorway to Nadine's room. All five girls looked up from where Allison was painting their nails.

"Daddy!" the twins and Nadine called out. They jumped up and ran to give him hugs.

"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" 47 asked.

"Momma is letting us have a sleepover. You don't actually sleep at a sleepover," Emily explained seriously.

"You do things like eat popcorn and watch movies and get your nails painted," Christy said, holding out her hands for his inspection.

47 gravely looked her hand over. "Is this fun?" he asked seriously. Personally he'd rather have someone holding a gun to head, but then Nika is always telling him that he knows nothing about girls and from what he'd seen over the last few years with Nadine and the twins she's right.

"Very fun!" they said with grins.

"Alright, but keep it quiet please. I'm very tired and I need some sleep," 47 told them. He let the girls go back to their party, their 'goodnight daddy, goodnight Uncle 47' ringing in his ears. That was something that he'd never thought he'd hear. The Organization had stolen so much from him and now that his family was safe, it was time to begin thinking about payback.

He slipped into his room not wanting to disturb Nika if she was sleeping. The bed was a little small for the both of them, but Nika had fallen in love with the antique the first time she'd seen it. The oak frame easily held both the mattress, the canopy and the heavy velvet curtains and was so heavy that it had taken six men to move it. 47 liked the fact that the curtains made it difficult to see if anyone was actually sleeping in the bed.

It was just one more thing that made his home a little more secure, not to mention the holsters that Nika had added to the headboard and side frame on his side of the bed. She'd gotten the idea from one of the books she'd read. 47 liked them because now that he was no longer sleeping alone his guns were more secure than if he'd just placed them under his pillow the way he had before. The children did tend to climb into bed with them when they'd had nightmares and 47 didn't want them to touch any of his weapons until he'd taught them how to properly handle them.

47 peeked in the curtains and smiled at the sight of Nika sleeping with the blankets halfway down her back again. He turned away to walk over to what would have been a walk in closet in any other home. This had been Nika's wedding present to him. She'd had the entire master bedroom suite remodeled so that there was now a secure room for his personal armory and a small room for his target information as well as a clothes closet for each of them.

He quickly unlocked the door to the armory and quickly, although still with his normal precision, removed each of his weapons and placed them where they belonged. Only two knives, a garrote and his pistols returned with him to the bedroom. A few moments later saw him changed and his remaining weapons secured for the night before he slipped into bed. He reached over to pull the blankets up over Nika, only to have her roll over and cuddle into his side. "Welcome home," she muttered sleepily. He kissed the top of her head, knowing that if he tried to give her a real kiss he'd regret it, and pulled the blankets over both of them. It was nice to be home.


	20. Chapter 20

Napa Valley

If there was one thing that Grace had learned about her brother's family since meeting them, it was that they took their morning workouts very seriously. She was certain that was because of the nature of 47's job and that the threat the Organization presented. After all, there was no sense in giving an enemy any advantage and she had seen the sort of no-holds-barred sort of fighting that the children's bodyguards were teaching them. That was why she led her father, Mathew, and Greg down to the salle as soon as they woke up, rather than trying to search the mansion for her brother's family.

At one time the large building had been a private dance studio for some rich man's daughter, who no doubt had dreamed about becoming a ballerina. The building still reflected its original purpose. The real red oak floor was sanded smooth enough that it felt like silk against bare feet. The walls still retained several practice bars of varying heights and one long wall of floor to ceiling mirrors. Clestory windows provided the majority of the available light, although electric lights were hidden around the building to provide any extra light that might be needed. Now this was where her nieces and nephews did their morning workouts and had their lessons in self-defense.

What she didn't expect to find was little Demyan charging his father and being thrown gently onto a mat, laughing his head off the entire time. The twins were next, followed by Alexander and Nadine. Grace noticed that as each child was tossed, the older they were, the more force 47 used. Although she wouldn't say that 47 threw Nadine anywhere near as hard as he could, it certainly wasn't the gentle toss he had given Demyan either.

"The first thing you learn is how to fall," Nika said. The group in the doorway of the salle looked over to where she was sitting on the floor with Eric, and she gestured for them to join her. "Learning how to fall properly prevents injuries, or so I'm told. Personally I prefer the dirty tricks to falling over and over on my ass." This was said with a grin.

"I would prefer that you never had to use either, but I'm not that foolish," 47 said. Grace noticed that he hadn't taken his attention of off what he was doing. Apparently the throwing session was only the warm up because each of the children then moved over to where their particular adult, (it wasn't just the bodyguards that Grace had gotten to know over the last few days) started them on what they were learning for the day. Crotch shots, nerve points and eye jabs seemed to be on the addenda for the day as each child was shown how to get away from a full grown man who had grabbed, or was attempting to grab, them.

47 stood up and gestured someone forward. To Grace's surprise it was Tony. 47 took him off to the side and the two men began sparring. It looked as though 47 was putting him through his paces, learning what Tony knew. She hoped that the two men could get along. Tony had been a friend of their family's for years. He was the person that she'd based her main character on, although she'd made her character far more arrogant than Tony had ever been in her presence.

"You have got to see the look on Tony's face when those two met," Greg snickered in her ear. He passed her his phone.

"What happened?" she asked. The looks on the men's faces were very clear in Greg's pictures.

"It seems that your brother has a lot of professional pride," David chuckled. "He called Tony a talented amateur."

"That's nothing," Nika laughed. "It's been ten years since we met and he's still more pissed off about the fact that the people setting him up told the world that he missed a shot than the fact that they were trying to kill him."

47 abruptly dropped Tony, turned and stalked over to his wife. "I haven't missed a shot since I was about ten," he growled. He snatched up the drink she was holding out to him.

"Of course not," she said matter-of-factly. "I just think it's funny that you're more upset about that than them trying to kill you."

"Kill us," he reminded her. "And having someone try to kill me is simply a hazard of the job."

Nika shrugged and took back the bottle of water. "As long as I don't end up in the trunk of a car with another dead body, I'm fine with it. It's in the past, over and done with and truthfully I do owe whoever it was." 47 cocked his eyebrow at her.

"If they hadn't used me to set you up, I never would have met you," Nika pointed out. "And that does not bear thinking about."

47 had been thinking about making a joke about putting her back into a trunk without a body anytime she wished but her comment on owing the Organization for introducing them made him pause. In a strange, roundabout way, Nika was right. Not meeting her did not bear thinking about. Perhaps he should go a little easier on one member of the Brotherhood in thanks – just not 13, the man responsible for almost getting her killed. Whatever he might have said was interrupted by Townsend entering the salle and announcing that breakfast was ready.

The children ran out of the salle and the adults hurried after them, making way for a new group moving in. Due to the now increased number of family members, the room where the family ate had changed from the smaller room near the kitchen to the formal dining room. Normally it wasn't used much, just for the dinner parties that Nika had to give, but it was as warm and welcoming as she could make it. For 47, seeing the room filled with the members of his family was as startling as finding out that he had actually had a family had been in the first place. Calmly he sat Nika down beside his seat as everyone else found a place to sit. The children were all gathered around Nadine's chair, looking at the stack of presents that were in front of her chair instead of a plate. "Daddy?" she asked, confused. It wasn't unusual for 47 to bring gifts back from his trips, but they were usually saved up for Christmas and birthdays as neither Nika nor 47 wished for their children to be spoiled.

"You've earned it," was 47's only response. Nika's eyes widened as she realized what he meant – he'd brought Nadine back a real gun of some kind just liked they'd talked about after they'd found out she was pregnant again.

With wide eyes Nadine tore into the biggest present while the adults got the rest of the kids into chairs and served. She gasped out loud as she realized exactly what was in the package and she jumped down out of her chair and ran over to hug her father. "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" she babbled, trying to squeeze the air out of her dad.

As was his habit, 47 kept a close watch on his surroundings, so he was prepared for her assault. "As I said, you've earned it, Nadine. The ammunition is down at the firing range. We'll go down there and get you started after breakfast."

"Thank you Daddy!" she said again and hurried back to her seat. "Thank you, Aunt Grace," she said as her aunt handed her a plate of food.

47 interrupted her as she started to eat her breakfast in a hurry. "You might want to open the rest of your packages first. They go with your rifle." Nadine stopped with her fork in her mouth, obviously having been so intent on her new weapon that she'd forgotten all about the other packages.

"So how'd she earn that?" David asked, watching his granddaughter tear her way through the rest of the packages. She was so happy that she looked like she was about to explode, and although he wasn't sure that the rifle was a good idea for her, he knew that he didn't know enough about anything that went on around here to object.

"She knows the safety rules well enough to be able to recite them half asleep and she's very careful when she helps me to clean my weapons. She's also very aware that the only –"

"Reason for a gun of any kind is to kill," Nika and their older children recited along with him. Demyan tried, but most of it was unintelligible with his mouth full of scrambled eggs. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Demyan," 47 said calmly. "Once you're proficient with the rifle, Nadine, I'll take you hunting."

"Rabbits?" she asked eagerly while her brother groaned. "What? I like rabbit stew the way Mrs. Townsend makes it," she glared at Alexander.

"We'll see what season it is when you're ready to start," 47 told them to stop the impending argument.

Keep of the Brotherhood

Castles and Keeps are a common sight throughout Europe, both those that have been restored to majestic splendor and those that are marked only by a few crumbling ruins. One small keep in central Europe has had the distinction of being occupied by the same group of monks since it was first built. The fact that the church no longer recognized them was of no importance to any of the monks who lived there. The Brotherhood was dedicated to ridding the world of men who gave themselves to evil. They had been selected from among the boys their organization trained to be assassins more because they had the proper attitude for monks than because of their expertise in killing – with the sole exception of their ruling council.

Thirteen of the deadliest assassins in the world sat around the large table that filled the tiny keep's great hall. They ignored the chill in the air that the fires in the fireplaces on each end of the hall tried valiantly to dispel, focusing on their work. They did not meet like this often, perhaps four times per year were they all in residence at the same time, but this was an emergency. For the first time since the exile, people who were not looking to hire one of their men knew about them, and they were all here to try and minimize the damage.

"Do you truly believe that an open contract on the boys and any family they might have found is the correct course of action to take care of that aspect of this situation?" 8 asked 13 carefully. He had no wish to provoke the other assassin. 13 was well known for having the temper of a viper – lethal, and quick to strike at any perceived attacks.

"They are a distraction," 13 replied coldly. "While the hordes of amateurs are making nuisances of themselves, forcing the public authorities to concentrate on them, the trainers, procurers, and other staff member of the training center are being dealt with." No one mentioned the hit on 47 and his family. They all knew about it and carefully ignored it. 13 hated 47. No one knew why, and quite frankly no one on the council really cared. They all had people on their personal hit lists that were there for personal reasons rather than professional ones. As long as any money spent on those open contracts came out of 13's personal coffers, no one would object either. "What about the handler staff?"

"Seventy five percent accounted for – either in prison awaiting trials, or retired. Some of the remaining twenty five percent have joined at least one of their agents for protection, a few have brought more than one together. The rest are being tracked as we speak." 4 offered. "They should be accounted for by the end of the week."

"And our agents?" 1 asked. "We should not waste their training. It will take time to rebuild our reserve of agents in training."

"Fifty percent accounted for," 10 admitted. "They will take longer to track down. Some are beginning to … ask questions."

A subtle coldness descended on the group. Questions were never something that could be allowed, under any circumstances. "You know what to do in that case," 1 said coldly. "6, have you selected a new site for the training center?" Six nodded and began briefing the rest of the council on the rebuilding process, down to the smallest detail. Nothing could be overlooked this time.


End file.
